THE 


WORLD 
STORM 


AND 


BEYOND 


EDWIN  DAVIES 
SCHOONMAKER 


THE 

WORLD  STORM 
AND  BEYOND 


THE 

WORLD  STORM 

AND  BEYOND 


BY 
EDWIN  DAVIES  SCHOONMAKER 

AUTHOR  OF   "THE  SAXONS,"  "THE  AMERICANS,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1915 


Copyright,  1914,  1915,  by 
THE  CENTUEY  Co. 


Publishtd  May,  1915 


TO 

N.  M.  S. 

COMRADE  IN 
PEACE  AND  WAR 


FOREWORD 

I  have  tried  in  the  following  pages  to  set  forth  in 
their  historical  perspective  some  of  the  causes  of  the 
great  war  and  also  to  trace  some  of  its  probable  con- 
sequences. Never  in  all  history  was  it  so  difficult  to 
put  the  significance  of  a  war  between  the  covers  of  a 
single  book,  for  aside  from  the  difficulty  of  distinguish- 
ing in  the  prevailing  confusion  what  is  important  from 
what  is  incidental,  never  before  were  so  many  and  such 
longstanding  dynastic,  national,  and  racial  ambitions 
the  tools  of  such  complex  social  forces.  Looking  out 
over  Europe  to-day  one  sees  as  from  all  sides  of  a  vast 
arena  an  outrushing  of  all  the  wild  beasts  which  for  a 
century  society  has  kept  partially  pacified.  All  the 
problems  which  we  have  inherited  from  the  past  and 
have  elbowed  toward  the  future,  making  the  present 
comfortable  with  compromise,  have  come  out  under 
cover  of  the  storm  and  are  seeking  in  war  those  solu- 
tions which  in  peace  were  seemingly  impossible  of  at- 
tainment. It  is  the  flaring  up  of  these  long-smoldering 
aspirations  of  humanity  for  larger  freedom  and  better 
conditions  of  life  that  is  giving  to  the  present  conflict  a 
meaning  immeasurably  greater  and  an  issue  of  far 
vaster  consequence  than  at  first  could  possibly  be  di- 
vined. Indeed,  within  the  past  few  months,  the  char- 


FOREWORD 

acter  of  the  war  has  undergone  a  surprising  change. 
Starting  with  an  assassination,  an  attack  upon  a  dy- 
nasty, then  rushing  to  a  conflict  between  nations  and 
between  races,  recently,  as  though  a  veil  were  being 
slowly  lifted,  we  have  become  aware  that  all  these  are 
but  streams  flowing  into  a  sea  of  a  mighty  social  war. 
It  is  not  at  all  improbable  that  this  may  be  its  final 
name,  the  Great  Social  War.  For  in  the  absence  of 
the  armies  upon  the  borders  and  under  the  urgency  of 
keeping  them  there,  reforms  nothing  short  of  amazing 
are  swiftly  and  surely  transforming  Europe  into  some- 
thing which  the  sociologist  will  have  difficulty  in  recog- 
nizing as  the  Europe  of  yesterday.  While  kings  are 
speaking,  humanity  is  also  having  its  say.  A  moiety 
of  consolation  for  a  sacrifice  so  immense.  And  yet, 
who  knows  ?  Peace  has  had  its  curses  quite  as  blight- 
ing as  war. 

Particularly  is  it  important  that  America  should 
keep  her  eyes  upon  the  social  changes  that  are  taking 
place  in  Europe.  For  while  we  are  congratulating 
ourselves  upon  our  good  fortune  in  that  peace  is  still 
with  us,  we  are  in  imminent  danger  of  losing  sight  of 
the  fact  that  the  present  war  has  lessons  for  us  beyond 
field  operations  and  armament  construction.  For  if 
when  the  conflict  is  ended  we  are  wiser  only  in  defend- 
ing our  shores  from  a  foreign  foe,  we  shall  find  beyond 
doubt  that  Europe  has  marched  through  blood  and 
death  into  a  new  and  better  age  and  that  America  has 
been  left  hopelessly  behind. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACP! 

I  FROM   CJESAR   TO    KAISER 3 

II  RUSSIA  AND  THE   OPEN   SEA 29 

III  THE    DEMOCRATIC   RUSSIANS 55 

IV  LAND    AND    WAR »      .      .      83 

V  EMPIRE    OR    FEDERATION 113 

VI  THE  FALL  OR  RISE  OF  SOCIALISM 137 

VII  HAS  THE  CHURCH  COLLAPSED? 165 

VIII  THE   COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 193 

IX  POETOGAMY 221 

X  THE  CULTURAL  OBSESSION 249 

XI  THE  MORAL  FAILURE  OF  "EFFICIENCY"      .      .      .273 


FROM  C^SAE  TO  KAISER 


NOTHING  is  more  striking  to  the  student 
of  history,  especially  to  one  interested  in 
the  growth  of  institutions,  than  to  watch  through 
the  centuries  the  specter  of  Caesar  moving  north- 
ward over  Europe.  The  shadow  of  a  dark 
cloud  passing  over  a  field  on  a  clear  day  in 
summer  is  not  more  visible  to  the  physical  eye 
than  is  this  other  shadow  that  gathered  head 
over  Eome  two  thousand  years  ago,  spread  out 
for  a  time  east  and  west  and  south,  but  finally 
all  but  withdrew  itself  from  these  quarters,  and 
made  northward  like  a  thing  that  had  at  last 
found  its  way.  It  is  not  by  mere  chance  that 
the  German  Emperor  wears  to-day  the  title  of 
Kaiser,  a  modification  of  Caesar,  or  that  his 
royal  cousin  to  the  north  wears  the  title  of 
Czar,  another  modification  of  the  same  name. 

3 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

Nor  is  it  strange  that  this  old  title  should  have 
entirely  disappeared  from  the  South,  where  it 
originated. 

Taking  the  world  as  a  whole,  the  movement 
of  civilization,  with  all  its  paraphernalia,  good 
and  evil,  is  westward;  but  taking  Europe  by 
itself,  the  movement  is  northward.  Italy, 
France,  Germany,  Russia — these  are  the  suc- 
cessive steps  of  civilization  on  the  continent  of 
Europe.  And  over  these  in  this  order  the 
shadow  and  the  sunlight  have  passed  and  are 
passing.  England,  separated  from  the  Conti- 
nent geographically,  is  also  something  of  a  law 
to  itself  in  the  matter  of  its  development,  and 
for  this  reason  chiefly  it  has  escaped  the  full 
blight  of  Caesarism,  and  has  thus  been  enabled 
in  times  of  crisis  to  come  forth  as  the  deliverer 
of  her  sister-nations.  England  is  like  a  rocky 
shore  where  the  strength  of  the  wave  is  broken 
and  scattered,  whereas  on  the  Continent  the 
surge  has  had,  as  it  were,  an  open  sea  over 
which  it  could  travel  freely  to  the  farthest  lands 
that  men  have  conquered  in  the  North.  And 
looking  out  over  the  expanse  of  history,  we  can 
follow  this  surge  of  Caesarism,  with  its  dark 
shadow  of  militarism,  from  its  ominous  rise  in 
Italy  twenty  centuries  ago ;  over  France,  where 

4 


FROM  C^SAR  TO  KAISER 

it  was  shattered;  over  Germany,  where  it  tow- 
ers to-day;  and  on  up  into  Russia,  where  in 
outward  appearance  it  is  piling  high  for  the  fu- 
ture. 

Let  us  see  what  this  Caesarism  is  that  is  just 
now  setting  Europe  in  tumult,  and  under  the 
leadership  of  the  German  Kaiser  is  hurling  its 
might  in  every  direction,  as  in  those  old  days 
when  Rome  flung  her  legions  to  every  point  of 
the  compass. 

The  first  Ca3sar,  whose  name  in  a  modified 
form  is  to-day  in  the  mouths  of  more  than  one- 
half  of  the  population  of  Europe,  was  the  first 
great  Roman  to  turn  the  face  of  his  martial 
nation  toward  the  north.  Julius  Caesar  was  not 
a  man  to  plow  over  old  fields.  Asia  and  Africa 
had  no  attraction  for  him ;  and  so  when  it  came 
to  choosing  a  province  for  his  activities,  he 
turned  toward  the  Alps,  and  led  his  legions 
across  into  Gaul,  which  is  now  France.  If  Ju- 
lius Caesar  had  been  simply  a  man,  his  name 
would  long  ago  have  been  forgotten.  But  he 
was  more  than  a  man.  He  was  an  idea  and 
an  ideal,  the  embodiment  of  imperial  Rome 
itself,  with  all  that  that  means — law  and  un- 
questioning obedience  to  law.  And  with  this 
ideal  he  came  among  a  people  that  had  al- 

5 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

ways  been  a  law  to  themselves,  that  even  in  the 
case  of  murder  had  never  brooked  the  interfer- 
ence of  their  own  governments  in  their  private 
affairs.  And  it  was  upon  this  people — the 
people  that  just  now  on  the  west  bank  of  the 
Rhine  are  in  arms  against  the  imperial  power 
of  the  Kaiser — that  imperial  Caesar,  two  thou- 
sand years  ago,  began  welding  the  Roman  yoke. 
And  well  he  succeeded.  Gaul  became  a  Roman 
province.  Roman  forts  sprang  up  everywhere, 
and  Roman  legions  moved  quickly  to  and  fro 
over  the  marvelous  Roman  roads. 

Caesarism  and  militarism — for  of  course 
among  a  freedom-loving  people  the  one  cannot 
exist  without  the  other — had  taken  their  first 
step  northward  over  Europe.  Tribes  that  up 
to  this  time  had  been  accustomed  to  govern 
themselves  now  became  accustomed  to  being 
governed  by  others,  began  to  tolerate  a  law  en- 
forced by  the  sword.  And  finally  they  them- 
selves, as  soldiers  of  the  Roman  Empire,  began 
to  assail  the  freedom  of  their  brothers  farther 
north.  But  beyond  the  Rhine  they  could  make 
no  headway  against  the  fierce  spirit  of  liberty 
of  those  kindred  tribes,  and  this  river  soon  be- 
came recognized  as  the  northern  boundary  of 
the  empire.  But  for  several  centuries  more, 

6 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  KAISER 

over  what  is  now  France,  the  system  of  the 
Caesars,  which  to-day  we  call  militarism,  held 
sway,  slowly  consuming  the  life-blood  of  the 
people  and  itself  rotting  upon  the  wealth  it  ab- 
sorbed. Then  quietly  the  scepter  of  the  em- 
pire in  the  South  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
popes,  and  the  objective  of  militarism  under- 
went a  change.  Where  of  old  it  had  enforced 
the  Roman  law,  it  began  now  to  enforce  the 
Christian  faith,  by  which  it  was  seen  that  a  new 
hold  could  be  gotten  upon  peoples  that  would 
otherwise  slip  away. 

There  is  no  more  interesting  chapter  of  his- 
tory than  that  which  records  this  subtle  trans- 
formation and  shows  us  the  native  kings  of 
these  Northern  peoples,  although  politically 
they  had  thrown  off  the  yoke  of  Rome,  con- 
tinuing to  be  none  the  less  faithful  agents  of 
Rome  in  the  establishment  of  its  new  hold  upon 
the  North.  Caesarism  was  still  alive,  and  mili- 
tarism was  still  its  tool.  For  several  centuries 
political  and  religious  absolutism  went  forth 
from  its  ancient  seat  upon  the  Tiber,  until  the 
sprit  of  the  people  was  broken,  especially  on 
the  side  of  the  Rhine  where  the  burden  had  lain 
long.  But  in  Italy,  where  it  had  lain  longest, 
a  new  day  began  presently  to  dawn.  The  old 

7 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

German  spirit,  which  had  infused  itself  into  the 
race  with  the  coming  of  the  Lombards,  broke 
out  into  flame.  In  vain  the  German  emperors, 
the  representatives  of  Caesarism  in  the  North, 
came  down  upon  them  with  their  armies.  The 
Italian  peoples  valiantly  defended  themselves, 
and  liberty  was  again  established  in  the  South. 
The  shadow  had  passed  off. 

But  over  France  it  still  lay  dark,  and  with 
the  passing  of  the  centuries  grew  darker  and 
darker.  "I  am  the  state,"  proclaimed  Louis 
XIV  with  an  arrogance  befitting  the  most  ty- 
rannical of  the  Caesars.  And  his  successors, 
gathering  their  minions  about  them  in  the  court 
at  Versailles,  fiddled  while  France  was  burning 
— burning  underground.  For  several  centuries 
the  political  agents  of  the  Caesars  had  nominally 
sat  first  upon  the  Swabian  and  later  upon  the 
Austrain  throne ;  but  in  France,  where  the  peo- 
ple had  suffered  perhaps  more  than  elsewhere, 
there  was  a  rumbling  and  a  gathering  of  mighty 
forces  that  were  to  eject  into  the  arena  of  Eu- 
ropean politics  a  successor  of  the  Caesars  worthy 
of  the  name.  As  in  Italy  it  was  a  group  of  free 
cities  that  first  sprang  into  new  life  and  kindled 
the  new  age,  in  France  it  was  a  group  of  free 
men — men  with  their  ears  to  the  ground  and 

8 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  KAISER 

with  their  pens  uttering  the  agony  and  the 
smoldering  desperation  of  France.  It  is  im- 
possible to  understand  the  real  character  of  the 
encyclopedists  and  those  later  fiery  leaders  of 
the  Revolution  without  some  acquaintance  with 
those  old  Gauls  like  Orgetorix  and  Vercinge- 
torix  who,  almost  eighteen  hundred  years  be- 
fore, had  grappled  with  the  forces  of  Caesarism 
when  they  first  made  head  beyond  the  Alps. 
For  these  sons  of  the  Revolution  were  full 
brothers  of  those  older  Gauls,  and  the  foe  in 
both  cases  was  the  same.  The  French  Revolu- 
tion was  the  long-delayed  answer  of  the  con- 
quered Gauls  to  their  conquerors,  the  Caesars, 
now  intrenched  not  in  Rome,  but  in  Paris. 
"Liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity/'  the  battle- 
cry  of  the  rising  people  of  France,  was  a  refined, 
philosophic  expression  of  what  those  dumb 
Gauls  had  tried  to  say  with  their  swords  to  the 
advancing  legions  of  Caesar. 

And  now  arises  one  of  those  strange  para- 
doxes of  history — a  real  Caesar  emerging  out 
of  the  swirl  of  the  Revolution,  and  gathering 
its  mighty  forces  into  his  own  person,  and  in  a 
way  turning  them  from  their  own  great  ends, 
and  yet  in  a  deeper  way  seized  by  those  forces 
and  used  to  spread  their  tremendous  message 

9 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

from  one  end  of  Europe  to  the  other.  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  was  beyond  question  a  real  Caesar  in 
his  understanding  of  the  power  of  militarism 
for  the  accomplishment  of  a  given  end.  And 
the  end,  too,  possibly  as  far  as  Napoleon  him- 
self could  see  it,  and  certainly  as  far  as  it 
touched  his  own  fortunes,  was  very  Caesaresque. 
For  the  armies  which  he  hurled  across  the  Rhine 
and  the  Danube  and  finally  on  into  the  heart  of 
the  Muscovite  empire,  bore  on  their  banners  the 
name  of  Napoleon,  as  the  legions  of  Caesar  had 
borne  the  name  of  Caesar,  and  the  power  which 
he  saw  growing  up  about  him  was  lifting  him 
to  the  throne  of  a  new  empire,  a  French  em- 
pire, just  as  similar  forces,  directed  in  a  similar 
way,  had  lifted  the  first  Caesar  to  the  mastery 
of  the  Roman  empire. 

But  the  paradox  is  only  a  seeming  one.  In 
the  larger  social  use  to  which  he  was  put,  Na- 
poleon Bonaparte  was  a  true  Gaul,  a  creature  of 
the  rising  forces  of  anti-Caesarism,  as  the 
crowned  heads  of  Europe  knew  very  well.  He 
was  a  tyrant  hitched  by  the  Fates  to  the  plow 
of  liberalism,  and  if  his  approach  produced  a 
shuddering  in  the  bosom  of  the  rulers  of  Aus- 
tria and  Prussia,  and  even  in  that  of  the  Czar, 
it  was  chiefly  because  of  this  very  fact  that  they 

10 


FROM  (LESAR  TO  KAISER 

saw  behind  him  the  great  plowshare  of  repub- 
licanism that  threatened  to  uproot  not  simply 
thrones,  but,  worse  still,  that  reverence  of  the 
people  upon  which  their  thrones  were  estab- 
lished. And  so  it  was  not  against  the  man  Na- 
poleon so  much  as  against  the  idea  behind  him 
that  their  cannon  were  loosened.  If  there  was 
ever  any  doubt  of  this  during  the  twenty  years 
in  which  Napoleon  went  up  and  down  Europe, 
scattering  everywhere,  with  the  very  songs  of 
his  soldiers,  those  firebrands  of  the  French  Rev- 
olution, liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity,  that 
doubt  was  dissipated  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna, 
which  met  after  Napoleon  had  been  permanently 
eliminated  from  the  situation.  For  to  this  con- 
gress from  the  corners  of  Europe  came  the  refu- 
gee defenders  of  the  old  order,  to  piece  together 
as  best  they  might  the  shattered  fragments  of 
absolutism. 

It  was  quite  in  keeping  with  her  ancient  char- 
acter that  Austria  should  assume  the  leadership 
in  this  reactionary  enterprise,  for  not  Napoleon, 
as  we  have  seen,  but  the  Emperor  of  Austria 
was  the  real  representative  of  those  imperial 
ideas  which  Rome  had  introduced  beyond  the 
Alps.  Unconquerable  foe  of  human  progress, 
Austria  has  alternately  attacked  and  broken  up 

11 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

the  three  great  races  of  Europe,  the  Latin,  the 
German,  and  the  Slav.  Never  once  has  she  been 
a  leader  of  the  forces  of  freedom.  Every  one 
knows  how,  during  the  Protestant  Reformation, 
that  uprising  of  the  German  people  for  liberty, 
it  was  the  House  of  Hapsburg,  the  ancestors  of 
the  present  Francis  Joseph,  that  went  through 
this  unfortunate  land  with  fire  and  sword.  And 
for  more  than  half  a  century  after  the  overthrow 
of  Napoleon  the  history  of  Europe  is  virtually 
the  history  of  the  mind  of  Metternich,  the  evil 
genius  of  Austria,  in  its  efforts  to  smother  the 
volcano  which  France  had  lighted,  and  whose 
lava  had  set  all  Europe  on  fire;  whose  sparks, 
indeed,  had  blown  clear  across  the  Atlantic,  and 
kindled  republicanism  in  South  America. 

It  is  particularly  interesting  just  now,  when 
the  seed  sown  in  those  old  days  by  Austria  is 
yielding  its  terrible  harvest,  to  watch  the  ef- 
forts of  those  frightened  Caesars,  banded  in 
Vienna,  to  gather  up  and  thrust  back  under- 
ground the  embers  of  freedom  in  Europe.  In- 
deed, one  cannot  understand  the  full  meaning 
of  the  tremendous  Armageddon  that  is  on  to-day 
without  some  knowledge  of  how  the  stage  was 
prepared  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury under  the  malign  influence  of  that  same 

12 


FROM  OESAR  TO  KAISER 

Austria  whose  hand  has  just  rung  up  the  cur- 
tain for  the  momentous  drama  just  begun. 

First  and  most  important  of  those  efforts  to 
restore  what  they  called  the  " peace"  of  Eu- 
rope, then,  was  to  stop  the  mouth  of  the  still 
active  volcano;  and  so  the  Bourbons  were  re- 
placed upon  the  throne  of  France.  Second, 
Italy,  whose  whole  northern  half  had  caught 
fire,  must  be  taken  under  the  fatherly  care  of 
Austria.  Third,  in  those  scattered  German 
principalities,  some  of  which  Napoleon  had  cap- 
tured from  Austria  and  which  he  had  built  into 
a  sort  of  buffer-wall  beyond  the  Rhine,  the  con- 
stitutions which  the  people  had  won  from  their 
rulers  were  now  taken  away  from  the  people, 
and  even  the  student  organizations,  which  with 
a  fervor  worthy  of  the  French  Jacobins  were 
working  for  the  freedom  of  the  German  people, 
were  broken  up. 

Quickly  now  the  reactionary  movement,  which 
up  to  this  time  had  been  dominated  by  Austria, 
began  to  come  to  a  head,  but  not,  as  the  Haps- 
burgs  had  hoped  and  expected,  in  Austria. 
Quietly  and  almost  in  a  night  the  spirit  of  Cae- 
sar crossed  the  borders  of  Austria  and  passed 
on  to  the  north  to  a  small  state  where  the  soil 
lay  virgin,  and  where  for  years  the  scattered 

13 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

forces  of  Europe  had  been  gathering  for  the 
building  up  of  a  militarism  the  like  of  which  the 
world  had  never  seen. 

During  all  the  centuries  that  she  had  held  the 
scepter  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  which,  in 
the  language  of  Voltaire,  was  "neither  holy  nor 
Roman  nor  an  empire,"  Austria  had  shown  a 
conspicuous  incapacity  to  reproduce  the  empire 
beyond  the  Alps,  and  this  not  at  all  because 
her  ideas  were  at  variance  with  the  ideals 
of  the  Caesars.  The  great  flaw  in  her  make-up, 
so  far  as  it  affected  the  Romanization  of 
the  Continent,  was  her  lack  of  that  construc- 
tive vision  and  that  dominating  energy  which 
were  marked  in  the  first  Caesar.  To  bring  into 
subjection  and  to  control  people — especially 
people  with  ancient  traditions  of  freedom  that 
have  always  lived  in  the  hearts  of  Europeans 
even  under  long-continued  tyranny — requires  a 
youthful  power  and  a  capacity  for  organization 
such  as  Austria  has  never  possessed.  Therefore 
it  is  that  we  see  her  to-day  playing  the  part  she 
has  always  played,  the  enemy  of  freedom,  with- 
out the  ability  to  fill  the  role  of  the  supreme  ty- 
rant, trouble-maker  still,  setting  all  Europe  on 
fire,  and  yet  lacking  the  eye  to  see  that  it  is  her 
own  house  she  is  reducing  to  ashes.  A  mind 

14 


FROM  C^SAR  TO  KAISER 

of  this  sort  is  no  place  for  the  spirit  of  the  first 
Csesar.  But  Austria,  blind  then  as  now,  did 
not  know  that  the  spirit  had  taken  its  depart- 
ure, and  so  held  on  to  the  empty  scepter  until  the 
forces  of  the  North  came  down  upon  her,  and 
Prussia  sprang  full  armed  and  vastly  ambitious 
into  the  troubled  arena  of  Europe. 

It  is  significant  to  note,  in  studying  the  north- 
ward movement  of  militarism  in  Europe,  that 
at  this  time  when  the  surge  was  lifting  its  great 
head  in  northern  Germany,  a  wide  stir  for  lib- 
erty was  abroad  in  Italy.  That  people,  which 
centuries  before,  at  the  point  of  the  sword,  had 
forced  its  iron  law  upon  the  free  peoples  of 
the  North,  was  now  battling  with  a  Northern 
tyrant  for  its  own  liberty.  The  war  which 
Prussia  fought  with  Austria  was  fought  with 
a  view  to  gaining  power,  whereas  Italy's  strug- 
gle with  the  same  despot  was  for  the  purpose 
of  achieving  freedom.  The  victory  over  the 
Hapsburgs  won  by  these  two  peoples,  the  one  in 
the  North  and  the  other  in  the  South,  are  usually 
compared,  with  a  view  to  pointing  out  resem- 
blances. Cavour,  it  is  explained,  is  Italy's  Bis- 
marck ;  Garibaldi  is  a  lesser  Moltke ;  while  Vic- 
tor Emmanuel  is  the  southern  William  I.  Both 
movements,  we  are  told,  were  movements  to- 

15 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

ward  unification.  And  this  is  true ;  but  no  one 
can  read  even  casually  the  history  of  those  times 
and  not  perceive  at  once  that  the  movement  in 
Italy  was  set  afoot  with  a  view  to  escaping  from 
a  despotic  militarism,  while  the  movement  in 
Prussia  was  launched  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
structing one. 

And  to  find  an  adequate  counterpart  for  the 
one  which  there  arose,  we  cannot  stop  at  the 
regime  of  Napoleon,  which  was  the  result  of  ab- 
normal conditions  and  contrary  to  the  aspira- 
tions of  the  people  whom  it  burdened,  but  we 
must  go  back  at  least  to  the  days  when  Rome 
was  at  the  height  of  her  military  career.  In- 
deed, it  is  extremely  doubtful  if  we  shall  find  it 
even  there ;  for  by  militarism  we  mean  not  the 
bluster  and  movement  of  conquest,  but  the  com- 
plete and  permanent  organization  of  a  people 
for  military  purposes.  If  a  nation's  energies 
are  absorbed  in  the  practice  of  arms,  especially 
if  this  practice  is  the  result  of  a  deliberate  plan 
for  a  later  aggressive  movement,  that  nation  is 
in  the  grasp  of  militarism  even  in  times  of  pro- 
tracted peace,  though  the  chances  are,  if  the 
practice  continues,  that  the  peace  will  not  be 
long  protracted. 

So,  without  going  into  the  causes  of  the  con- 
16 


FEOM  C^ESAE  TO  KAISER 

flict,  within  five  years  after  her  seven-weeks* 
triumph  over  Austria  we  find  Prussia  at  the 
throat  of  France.  Now,  France,  as  we  know, 
is  south  of  Prussia,  and  so  if  we  knew  nothing 
of  the  history  of  Europe  except  that  militarism 
is  constantly  moving  northward,  and  if  we  knew 
nothing  of  the  history  of  France  during  the 
half-century  succeeding  the  downfall  of  Napo- 
leon, we  should  be  quite  safe  in  assuming  that 
the  spirit  of  liberty  was  there  leavening  the 
people ;  in  other  words,  that  the  light  which  we 
have  seen  breaking  over  Italy,  and  which  al- 
ways follows  the  dark  shadow  of  militarism,  was 
shining  more  or  less  brightly  over  her  Northern 
neighbor.  And  such  was  the  case.  With  all 
their  restoration  of  Bourbonism,  the  powerful 
coalition  of  reactionaries  had  not  been  able  to 
stamp  out  in  France  the  love  of  liberty  and  the 
movement  toward  a  freer  government. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  things  in  the  coun- 
try west  of  the  Ehine  when  the  Prussian  thun- 
derbolt fell  upon  her.  From  this  shock  France 
rebounded  toward  republicanism,  and  Prussia 
even  further  toward  that  system  of  imperial  au- 
thority against  which  her  Socialists  have  ever 
since  battled  in  vain.  The  German  empire, 
homogeneous,  or  almost  so  in  a  racial  way,  in 

17 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

those  deeper  elements  that  go  to  make  up  her 
character,  is  as  much  of  a  dual  empire  as  Aus- 
tria-Hungary, only  in  the  former  case  the  two 
empires,  instead  of  lying  side  by  side,  as  in  the 
latter,  are  superimposed  the  one  upon  the  other. 
And  it  was  probably  as  much  for  the  purpose  of 
holding  and  welding  these  two  antagonistic,  tur- 
bulent empires  together  as  it  was  to  establish 
and  protect  pan-Germanism  in  Europe  that  the 
stupendous  -machine  that  is  now  in  motion  was 
wrought  out.  Socialism  in  Germany,  the  lower 
layer  in  the  dual  empire  of  which  the  upper  layer 
is  the  war  party,  or  the  Government,  is  the  in- 
dustrial projection  of  that  political  Revolution 
which  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago  shook 
France,  and  indeed  all  Europe,  to  its  founda- 
tions. 

To  perceive  the  truth  of  this  statement,  we 
need  only  lay  side  by  side  those  pages  of  history 
dealing  with  the  rise  of  the  Third  Estate  in 
France  with  those  later  pages  which  describe 
the  revolt  of  the  working-classes  in  Germany.  It 
is  the  same  struggle  transferred  to  the  cities. 
Karl  Marx  is  clearly  the  Rousseau  of  the  Revo- 
lution beyond  the  Rhine.  And  those  able  men, 
his  contemporaries  and  successors,  who  have 
wrought  out  into  an  exact  science  and  fearlessly 

18 


FROM  CLESAR  TO  KAISER 

disseminated  throughout  the  empire  the  new 
economics,  bear  a  resemblance  to  the  French  en- 
cyclopedists too  striking  to  be  mistaken.  In 
the  later  case,  it  is  the  same  fierce  light  turned 
not  upon  the  state,  but  upon  the  strongholds  of 
capital. 

But  we  are  living  in  an  age  of  speed,  when 
revolutions  accomplish  in  decades  what  for- 
merly required  centuries.  Kaiser  Wilhelm  is 
evidently  the  Grand  Monarch  overtaken  by  the 
deluge.  The  expression,  "I  am  the  state, "  fits 
quite  as  well  in  the  mouth  of  William  II  as  in 
that  of  Louis  XIV. 

But  the  parallel  does  not  stop  here.  The 
Bourbon,  who  seems  to  have  been  born  with  the 
idea  that  he  was  France,  soon  got  it  into  his 
head  that  he  was  Europe.  And  this  idea  re- 
mained there  and  grew  until  the  disillusionment 
came  at  the  sword-points  of  the  surrounding 
nations,  with  the  help  of  England.  And  just  as 
for  a  time  the  Bourbons  were  able  to  deceive  the 
people  into  identifying  their  interests  with  that 
of  their  rulers,  so  it  would  seem  that  the  deadly 
parallel  is  projecting  itself  into  the  future. 

But  there  came  a  time  in  France  when  the 
people  awoke  to  the  true  meaning  of  what  was 
going  on.  Then  all  those  forces  which  had 

19 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

fought  the  imaginary  enemy  on  the  borders 
turned  terribly  toward  their  real  enemy  in  Paris. 
We  all  know  the  result,  how  the  whole  upper 
crust  of  France,  with  its  gilded  and  shivering 
aristocracy,  was  shattered  and  blown  into  frag- 
ments. 

It  is  of  course  not  to  be  expected,  in  following 
out  a  parallel  of  this  sort,  that  the  comparison 
will  hold  good  in  minor  details.  We  do  not  ex- 
pect, for  instance,  to  find  the  Kaiser  toying  with 
a  Montespan  or  a  Pompadour,  or  to  see  at  Pots- 
dam the  idle  courtiers  that  thronged  the  court 
at  Versailles.  Times  have  changed.  The  del- 
uge of  democracy  has  wrought  wonders.  The 
spirit  of  work,  long  confined  to  the  masses,  is 
electrifying  even  the  upper  classes.  And  so  far 
as  their  social  duties  will  permit,  even  monarchs 
are  becoming  workmen.  Of  no  nation  is  this  so 
true  as  it  is  of  Germany.  Potsdam  is  not  only 
the  royal  residence,  but  it  is  also  the  commercial 
office  of  the  empire.  But  we  must  not  be  misled 
by  these  facts.  We  must  not  imagine,  because 
the  German  Emperor  and  his  courtiers  have 
gone  to  work,  that  what  is  happening  in  Europe 
to-day  never  happened  before. 

It  would  be  strange  indeed  if  the  Kaiser, 
shrewd  man  that  he  is,  and  familiar  as  he  is 

20 


FROM  C^SAR  TO  KAISER 

with  the  disasters  that  overtook  the  royal  auto- 
crats on  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine,  should  re- 
peat the  blunders  that  brought  down  those  dis- 
asters. The  later  Bourbons  saw  the  approach 
of  the  deluge,  but  lifted  no  hand  to  stay  its  com- 
ing. Enough  for  them  if  only  they  could  burn 
the  fragrant  candle  and  get  away  before  the 
storm  should  break.  Even  the  Grand  Monarch 
was  something  of  a  decadent.  But  the  Hohen- 
zollerns  are  not  the  Bourbons.  William  II  is  a 
man  of  business,  and  business  imparts  alertness, 
develops  the  faculty  of  organization  and  deci- 
sion. And  the  decision  to  which  the  Kaiser  has 
come,  to  which  he  probably  came  years  ago,  is 
that  something  must  be  done  to  save  his  regime 
from  the  rising  waters  of  German  socialism. 

To  accomplish  this  he  must  begin  where  all 
monarchs  begin.  The  people  must  be  deceived 
into  identifying  their  interest  with  that  of  the 
reigning  house.  Second,  they  must  be  educated, 
for  years  if  necessary,  to  see  that  the  Kaiser  is 
arming  the  empire  not  to  maintain  his  own  me- 
dieval regime,  but  to  save  the  workshops  of  the 
fatherland,  and  this  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that 
hand  in  hand  with  peace  German  trade  has  been 
conquering  the  world!  And  third,  if  the  plan 
is  to  succeed,  the  machine  must  be  set  in  motion 

21 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

from  the  outside,  else  the  mask  falls  off  and  the 
whole  ghastly  thing  is  laid  bare. 

Compared  with  this  subtle  and  far-reaching 
conspiracy  against  the  rising  spirit  of  the  Ger- 
man people  and  the  peace  and  freedom  of  Eu- 
rope, compared  especially  with  the  thorough- 
ness of  the  preparation,  how  shallow  and  loose 
the  statesmanship  of  the  Bourbons!  Indeed, 
the  coup  that  has  just  been  sprung  by  the  hand 
of  Austria  is  Napoleonic,  with  the  hue  possibly 
of  that  madness  which  characterized  the  Corsi- 
can  in  his  last  days.  For  while  it  is  perhaps  too 
early  to  forecast  with  any  degree  of  certainty 
the  outcome  of  the  gigantic  game,  signs  are  not 
wanting  that  the  German  emperor,  like  the 
French  emperor  before  him,  is  being  used  de- 
spite himself  by  those  very  forces  which  he  im- 
agines he  is  thwarting,  and  is  struggling  blind- 
folded for  the  emancipation  of  Europe. 

It  is  right  in  keeping  with  this  theory  of  the 
northward  movement  of  militarism  in  Europe, 
and  is  another  proof  of  the  correctness  of  this 
theory,  that  in  this  critical  moment  when  mili- 
tarism is  threatening  the  whole  Continent,  Italy 
should  have  dropped  away  from  the  Triple  Alli- 
ance and  arrayed  herself  in  heart  at  least  with 
France.  And  that  she  should  have  been  able 

22 


FROM  CAESAR  TO  KAISER 

even  thus  far  to  hold  herself  aloof  from  the 
conflict  is  further  proof  that  a  better  day  is 
dawning  for  the  South.  And  it  is  obvious  that 
the  present  war  in  which  France  is  engaged  is  in 
all  essentials  a  replica  of  that  war  which,  almost 
half  a  century  ago,  Italy  waged  with  Austria. 
Aside  from  the  fact  that  it  is  a  Latin  people 
against  a  German  people,  it  is  also  true  that  the 
underlying  motive  is  the  same.  If  Italy's  was  a 
struggle  for  freedom,  so  also  is  the  present 
struggle  of  France,  not  of  course  for  freedom 
from  oppressive  institutions,  but,  what  amounts 
almost  to  the  same  thing,  from  a  permanent  and 
well-grounded  fear  of  such  oppression.  And 
unless  signs  are  misleading,  that  aggressive 
militarism  which  through  the  centuries  we  have 
seen  come  up  from  the  south  and  move  with  peri- 
odic pauses  and  conflicts  to  the  north,  is  prepar- 
ing for  another  migration  northward.  Indeed, 
it  is  not  at  all  improbable  that  this  desperate 
and  apparently  aggressive  movement  of  Caesar- 
ism  in  Europe  is  the  taking  up  of  baggage  for  a 
retreat. 

And  there  is  only  one  country  left  on  the  Con- 
tinent with  anything  like  the  character  of  people 
and  the  width  of  dimensions  demanded  where 
this  monstrous  institution  can  find  refuge.  And 

23 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

that  is  Russia.  From  centuries  of  slaughter  of 
the  Latin  and  the  Teuton,  will  it  find  a  home 
with  the  Slav  and  with  him  round  out  its  life? 
In  the  following  pages  I  shall  try  to  throw  some 
light  upon  this  question  in  so  far  as  it  concerns 
the  character  of  the  Russian  people.  As  for  the 
Russian  government,  no  one  of  any  intelligence 
is  misled  as  to  its  real  attitude  toward  Caesarism 
by  its  alinement  in  the  present  contest.  If  the 
Czar  is  striking  at  the  Kaiser,  it  is  not  of  course 
because  he  is  opposed  to  what  the  Kaiser  stands 
for.  Czar  and  Kaiser,  as  we  have  seen,  mean 
Caesar,  and  the  two  emperors,  cousins  by  blood, 
are  full  brothers  in  politics.  It  has  been 
pointed  out  time  and  again  that  their  rivalry 
is  racial,  the  Slav  against  the  Teuton.  There 
is  doubtless  some  truth  in  this ;  but  the  rivalry 
is  also  personal.  There  has  never  been,  and 
there  is  not  now,  room  enough  in  Europe  for  two 
Caesars.  One  must  give  way.  Just  as  fifty 
years  ago  in  the  contest  for  the  same  imperial 
primacy  within  the  German  race  one  of  the 
claimants  was  obliged  to  give  way.  In  that  case, 
true  to  the  movement  we  are  tracing,  the  North- 
ern champion  proved  the  stronger.  Indeed,  the 
position  of  Germany  to-day  bears  a  striking 
resemblance  to  the  position  then  occupied  by 

24 


FROM  C^SAR  TO  KAISER 

Austria.  Then,  as  we  have  seen,  Italy,  to  the 
south,  was  fighting  with  Austria  for  freedom, 
while  Prussia,  to  the  north,  was  trying  to  wrest 
from  the  same  power  the  ancient  scepter  of  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  which,  as  an  idea  at  least, 
still  rested  in  the  hands  of  the  Hapsburgs. 
Now  France,  to  the  south,  is  battling  to  main- 
tain its  freedom  against  Germany,  while  Russia, 
to  the  north,  is  snatching  at  that  old  scepter 
which  Prussia  won  from  Austria. 

The  movement  as  well  as  the  character  of 
militarism  in  Europe  is  well  expressed  in  the 
person  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  Born  an  Ital- 
ian, operating  all  his  life  from  France,  and  now 
for  years  the  openly  avowed  inspiration  of  the 
leaders  of  Germany,  seldom  has  it  fallen  to  the 
lot  of  one  man  as  it  fell  to  the  lot  of  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  to  dominate  his  own  age  and  to 
chart  the  drift  of  two  thousand  years.  Having 
passed  through  her  militaristic  period,  Italy 
could  not  use  him,  and  so  he  was  obliged  to  move 
northward  to  France  as  he  now  moves  north- 
ward to  Germany,  to  northern  Germany. 

It  is  greatly  to  be  hoped,  yet  possibly,  at  least 
just  now,  hardly  to  be  expected,  that  the  German 
people,  intelligent  as  they  are  and  thoroughly 
versed  as  they  are  in  the  evolution  of  history, 

25 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

will  see  the  real  meaning  of  the  struggle  in  which 
they  are  engaged  and  will  avail  themselves  of 
the  present  crisis  to  exorcise  forever  the  spirit 
of  the  Caesars.  They  are  in  the  throes,  if  they 
only  knew  it,  not  of  a  foreign  war,  but  of  an  in- 
ternal revolution,  and  the  mighty  sounds  of  ap- 
proaching armies  all  about  them  are  simply  the 
rest  of  Europe  coming  to  their  aid.  Their  long 
and  strenuous  struggle  for  liberty  is  on  the 
point  of  bearing  fruit,  for  the  freer  institutions 
beyond  the  Rhine  seem  likely  to  be  extended.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  unparalleled  social  and  in- 
dustrial progress  which  the  German  people  have 
made  in  the  short  half -century  of  their  national- 
ity, and  that,  too,  in  the  face  of  an  antiquated 
and  repressive  political  system,  bids  fair  at  last 
to  overflow  their  boundaries  and  spread  all  over 
Europe.  Defeat  at  this  price,  if  defeat  must 
come,  is  victory,  just  as  the  defeat  of  Napoleon 
was  a  victory  for  the  French.  For  this  contest 
also  is  a  contest  not  of  arms,  but  of  ideas,  and 
that  nation  whose  ideas  shall  come  out  of  this 
great  threshing  best  fitted  to  undertake  the  so- 
cial and  industrial  reorganization  for  which  all 
Europe  is  waiting  will,  whether  in  victory  or  de- 
feat, be  ultimately  and  essentially  the  winner. 


26 


KUSSIA  AND  THE  OPEN  SEA 


n 

RUSSIA  AND  THE   OPEN   SEA 

WHATEVER  may  happen  to  the  other  na- 
tions whose  swords  are  crossed  in  the 
great  conflict  that  is  now  waging,  no  one  expects 
that  the  destiny  of  the  colossus  of  the  North  will 
be  seriously  interfered  with.  France  may  be 
overrun  or  a  similar  fate  may  overtake  Ger- 
many, Austria  may  disappear  from  the  map  or 
the  British  empire  may  be  broken  up;  but  be- 
tween Russia  and  any  great  harm  still  lie  those 
impenetrable  spaces  where  the  armies  of  Na- 
poleon lie  buried — those  armies  that  Europe  has 
not  forgotten.  When  the  swords  that  are  now 
clashing  are  put  up  and  the  game  is  over,  Ger- 
many and  Austria  or  England  and  France  may 
divide  the  present,  but  the  future  belongs  to 
Russia. 

Let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  history  and 
aspirations  of  this  great  people,  and  see  how  she 
lies  with  relation  to  things  that  are  happening 
and  to  things  that  will  happen  when  the  wounds 
that  are  now  opening  are  healed,  and  the  chil- 

29 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

dren  of  fathers  that  are  now  dying  have  become 
the  masters  of  Europe. 

For  centuries  the  Slav  has  lived  and,  so  far 
as  the  rest  of  the  world  is  concerned,  still  lives 
just  beyond  the  horizon.  There  is  about  him 
something  of  the  wonder  with  which  our  fore- 
fathers regarded  the  hyperboreans,  something 
of  the  awe  with  which  dwellers  in  valleys  look 
upon  high  mountains,  upon  the  Alps  or  the 
Himalayas.  He  appears  and  disappears,  strikes 
or  is  ever  about  to  strike.  He  is  the  Apache 
of  Europe  and  Asia,  the  Ishmael  of  the  Cau- 
casian race.  To  the  south  of  a  ragged  line 
touching  the  civilizations  ancient  and  modern 
of  virtually  the  whole  earth,  eyes  are  eternally 
fixed  upon  the  North,  wondering  where  he  will 
appear  next.  Indeed,  this  anxiety  is  a  kindred 
bond  uniting  the  heterogeneous  peoples  of  the 
temperate  zone  of  the  two  continents.  To  find 
anything  like  it  we  must  go  back  to  the  days 
when  along  borders  much  less  extensive  the 
people  of  the  Roman  empire  looked  toward  the 
north,  where  a  similar  menace  was  gathering. 
While  the  Swede  is  out  on  his  watch-towers  in 
the  west,  the  Japanese  is  patrolling  his  coast, 
and  between  them  what  motley  sentinels  move  to 
and  fro,  what  strange  tongues  are  naming  the 

30 


RUSSIA  AND  THE  OPEN  SEA 

common  fear !  Where  will  he  appear  next?  In 
what  numbers  will  he  come?  And  how  much 
land  will  he  seize?  Not  a  year  passes,  not  a 
month  probably,  that  the  matter  is  not  up  in 
some  cabinet  or  other  of  Europe  or  Asia.  And 
a  good  guess  is  fame  for  any  statesman. 

But  what  scant  material  to  work  upon !  One 
could  take  a  map  of  the  earth,  and  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten  lay  his  finger  upon  those  spots  where 
England  or  France  or  Germany  or  any  other 
of  the  leading  commercial  nations  will  appear, 
provided  he  knows  where,  in  unappropriated  re- 
gions, rich  mines  or  timber  or  reservoirs  of  oil 
will  be  found.  But  what  of  the  Slav,  who  is  still 
almost  wholly  outside  the  pale  of  the  commercial 
age?  With  him  it  is  enough  if  it  is  only  land. 
There  are  times,  of  course,  when  even  England 
will  pick  up  a  piece  of  territory  that  is  not  too 
dangerously  attached  to  a  strong  nation — a 
piece  that  has  none  of  the  allurements  I  have 
mentioned.  But  if  you  will  look  closely,  you 
will  see  that  it  has  at  least  population.  For  a 
market  for  finished  products  is  quite  as  essential 
as  sources  of  raw  material.  But  Russia,  stu- 
pidly unmoved,  it  would  seem,  by  these  refine- 
ments, gathers  up  with  the  same  avidity  the 
mountain  fastnesses  of  the  Caucasus  and  the 

31 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

cities  of  China.  This  it  is  more  than  anything 
else  that  makes  it  difficult  for  the  statesmen  of 
commercial  nations  to  understand  Russian  di- 
plomacy or  to  predict  with  any  certainty  just 
where  along  her  interminable  borders  the  Cos- 
sack will  appear.  To  know,  as  every  one  knows, 
that  Russia  is  seeking  always  an  outlet  to  the 
sea,  to  the  open  sea,  is  of  little  help.  For  ex- 
perience has  shown  that  she  is  quite  as  capable 
of  moving  upon  one  a  thousand  miles  away  as 
upon  one  within  sight.  And  coupled  with  the 
capacity  for  a  quick  stroke,  like  the  cobra,  what 
glacier-like  patience!  Other  nations  must 
hurry  or  stand  still,  choose  either  the  present 
or  the  future;  Russia  can  do  both.  Hence  the 
wonder  and  the  perplexity,  the  eagerness  to 
thwart  her,  and  yet  the  certainty  of  ultimate  de- 
feat. For  while  other  nations  are  obliged  to 
conquer  peoples,  Russia  can  seep  out  from  her 
own  land  and  absorb  them. 

What  is  it  that  has  made  Russia  the  great 
enigma,  the  stranger  both  to  Europe  and  Asia  ? 
Beyond  doubt  the  fact  that  she  is  herself  neither 
one.  To  the  Asiatic  she  is  something  of  a  Eu- 
ropean ;  to  the  European  she  is  something  of  an 
Asiatic :  yet  to  both  she  is  not  wholly  either  the 
one  or  the  other.  She  is  like  a  great  tree  with 

32 


RUSSIA  AND  THE  OPEN  SEA 

her  ancient  trunk  rising  up  out  of  the  Caucasus, 
the  early  home  of  the  Slavic  people,  and  tower- 
ing up  into  the  ices  of  the  North,  and  with  her 
branches  extending  east  and  west  into  the  sun- 
rise and  the  sunset.  And  yet  her  leaves  are 
neither  of  the  East  nor  of  the  West.  She  is 
white  like  the  European,  and  yet  the  brown  man 
and  the  yellow  man  understand  her.  And  un- 
der her  immense  shade  what  multicolored  gar- 
ments, what  a  strange  cluster  of  tongues !  Peo- 
ple of  the  older  races  of  Asia  have  often  ob- 
served that  the  cosmopolitanism  even  of  the 
Briton,,  the  European  world-man,  is  a  matter  of 
manners,  the  affected  suavity  of  the  drummer, 
whereas  the  Slav,  certainly  that  type  which  the 
great  mother  throws  out  in  inexhaustible  thou- 
sands along  her  borders,  is  bon  vivant  with  all 
the  races  and  classes  of  the  earth.  The  other 
nations  of  Europe  have  made  the  acquaintance 
of  alien  peoples,  but  Eussia — Russia,  it  would 
seem,  has  always  known  them.  Their  small 
lives  found  comfortable  places  in  her  vastness, 
their  children  are  at  home  in  her  great  lap. 

It  behooves  the  nations,  especially  those  that 
expect  to  travel  the  road  of  the  future,  to  learn 
something  of  Russia,  as  it  behooved  the  Roman 
to  learn  something  of  the  Gaul.  They  cannot 

33 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

afford  to  go  on  drawing  the  sword  whenever  she 
appears.  But  right  now,  when  new  alinements 
are  being  made  for  the  future,  they  should  be- 
gin that  rapprochement  which  will  admit  Russia 
into  the  family  of  nations  not  as  a  menace,  but 
as  a  friend.  At  least  we  here  in  America,  aloof, 
it  is  to  be  hoped,  from  the  prejudices  of  the 
Old  World — we,  young  as  Russia  is  young,  het- 
erogeneous as  Russia  is  heterogeneous,  and  en- 
tering upon  our  world  life  as  Russia  is  entering 
upon  hers,  should  without  delay  turn  with 
open  and  friendly  mind  to  this  great  stranger. 
We  should  not  be  satisfied  with  a  report  of  her 
crimes  delivered  to  us  over  the  cables  of  other 
nations,  or  even  with  the  reading  of  her  novels, 
or  the  viewing  of  her  dances.  We  ourselves 
would  not  be  satisfied  with  a  judgment  of  our 
own  country  based  upon  such  materials.  We 
should  try  to  find  out  something  not  only  of 
what  she  is,  but  of  what  she  is  trying  to  be. 
And  to  understand  her,  three  things  at  least  are 
indispensable :  first,  a  general  knowledge  of  Eu- 
ropean peoples  and  institutions ;  second,  a  simi- 
lar knowledge,  smattering  at  least,  of  the  great 
peoples  of  the  near  East  and  the  far  East,  who 
for  generations  have  felt  the  push  of  this  human 
glacier  along  that  ever-southward-moving  line 

34 


RUSSIA  AND  THE  OPEN  SEA 

between  the  Black  Sea  and  the  China  wall ;  and 
thirdly,  a  knowledge,  of  what  two  such  ingredi- 
ents will  produce  in  the  way  of  a  third.  It  is 
this  last,  of  course,  that  has  made  Eussia  the 
despair  of  travelers  and  psychologists.  For 
human  chemistry,  while  it  may  be,  as  some  claim 
it  is,  a  science,  is  as  yet  a  science  of  the  future. 
"Scratch  a  Eussian  and  find  a  Tartar"  is  a  for- 
mula too  evidently  drafted  for  the  convenience 
of  those  who  contemplate  a  summer  sojourn  in 
this  immense  land,  a  reed  too  slight  at  least  for 
statesmen  to  lean  upon. 

But  let  us  "scratch"  this  Eussian,  and  this 
Tartar,  too,  and  see  if  we  can  discover  what  it 
is  that  has  made  him  the  world  figure  he  is  and 
that  threatens  to  make  him  the  figure  of  the 
world,  though  at  present  he  is  only  beginning  to 
be  seen  behind  the  towering  shadows  of  Ger- 
many and  France  and  England  that  for  cen- 
turies have  filled  the  horizon. 

Looking  first,  then,  into  his  past,  we  find  dur- 
ing the  short  thousand  years  that,  properly 
speaking,  he  has  occupied  the  stage  of  history, 
three  events  stand  out  as  of  prime  importance. 
One  of  them  is  a  call  to  Europe,  another  a  call 
from  Asia,  while  a  third  has  tied  him  to  that  un- 
settled region  between  Europe  and  Asia,  that 

35 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

boiling-pot  of  the  races  where  the  sword  for  cen- 
turies has  never  dried  and  which  has  at  last  set 
all  Europe  aflame. 

The  first  of  these  events  is  an  invasion,  if  we 
may  call  it  so — an  invasion  of  that  same  Scandi- 
navian race  whose  vikings  at  about  the  same 
time  were  pouring  down  into  England  and 
France,  down  even  into  Sicily  and  southern 
Italy.  But  upon  these  latter  lands  they  came 
as  brigands,  sword  in  hand,  at  first  for  booty, 
and  then  for  permanent  homes  in  the  comfort- 
able sunshine  which  they  found  there.  But  into 
Russia,  so  the  story  goes,  they  entered  not  as 
robbers,  but  upon  invitation,  and  that,  too,  not 
as  the  Saxons  were  invited  into  Britain,  to  help 
stem  the  rising  tide  of  rapacious  neighbors,  but 
to  aid  in  the  establishment  of  an  orderly  govern- 
ment. It  was  an  extraordinary  procedure,  cer- 
tainly, and  one  which  should  not  be  forgotten; 
for  here  we  see  for  the  first  time,  and  that,  too, 
far  back  in  the  twilight,  the  hand  of  the  Slav 
held  out  in  brotherly  friendship,  asking  help. 
1 '  Our  land  is  great  and  fruitful,  but  it  lacks  or- 
der and  justice;  come  and  take  possession  and 
govern  us."  Significant  appeal! 

Just  how  much  of  the  subsequent  history  of 
Russian  conquest  is  due  to  this  fiery  drop  of 

36 


viking  blood  which,  infused  in  a  somewhat 
larger  quantity  into  Britain,  has  goaded  her  out 
over  the  seas  into  every  corner  of  the  globe,  it  is 
of  course  impossible  to  say.  In  Russia  the 
Northmen  never  acquired  that  complete  and  per- 
manent control  which  they  secured  in  Britain. 
For  the  expanding  Scandinavian  race,  instead  of 
following  in  the  path  of  Eurik,  preferred  to  turn 
their  ships  to  the  south,  and  Russia  was  again 
cut  off. 

When  next  she  appears,  it  is  again  with  hands 
outstretched,  not  this  time  for  governors,  but  for 
teachers.  The  Dark  Ages,  which  had  come  over 
Europe  with  the  fall  of  the  Roman  empire,  were 
giving  way  in  the  South  to  the  light  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  missionaries,  who  were  wandering 
everywhere,  finally  reached  Russia.  But  when 
they  came,  they  came,  unfortunately,  not  from 
Rome  only,  but  from  Constantinople  also.  For 
the  great  schism  was  already  a  fact,  and  there 
was  now  an  Eastern  as  well  as  a  Western 
church. 

Probably  nothing  in  all  the  history  of  Russia 
has  so  affected  her  destiny,  and  possibly  also  the 
ultimate  destiny  of  Europe  and  Asia,  as  this 
great  schism  in  the  South.  For  more  than  any- 
thing else,  possibly  more  than  all  other  things 

37 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

combined,  this  it  is  that  has  opened  the  chasm 
between  Russia  and  the  rest  of  Europe.  For 
when  once  the  ambassadors  whom  the  ruling 
prince  Vladimir  sent  out  to  canvass  the  reli- 
gions of  the  world  with  a  view  to  determining 
which  was  the  best  for  the  Russian  people,  re- 
turned and  reported  in  favor  of  the  Orthodox, 
or  Greek  Catholic,  with  its  seat  at  Constanti- 
nople, and  the  prince  indorsed  this  recommenda- 
tion, from  that  moment  the  face  of  Russia  was 
turned  toward  the  East.  From  that  moment 
she  began  to  be  a  stranger.  Henceforth  her 
music,  her  architecture,  her  government,  her 
whole  national  character  indeed,  began  gradu- 
ally to  be  molded  not  after  the  models  of  Eu- 
rope, but  after  those  of  Asia.  Henceforth  there 
was  to  be  misunderstanding  between  the  rest 
of  Europe  and  their  Northern  neighbor — a  mis- 
understanding which  is  utterly  incomprehen- 
sible without  this  explanation.  For  the  Slavic 
people  are  full  cousins  of  the  German,  of  the 
French,  of  the  English,  of  all  the  great  peoples 
of  Europe ;  for  all  these,  including  the  Slav,  are 
Aryan. 

This,  then,  is  the  seed  out  of  which  have 
arisen  those  tremendous  complications  which 
to-day  embroil  the  world. 

38 


EUSSIA  AND  THE  OPEN  SEA 

The  last  event,  second  only  in  importance  to 
the  one  I  have  just  mentioned  as  far  as  its  effect 
upon  the  character  and  institutions  of  Russia  is 
concerned,  came  as  the  result  not  of  a  peaceful 
sending  of  ambassadors  among  the  civilized  na- 
tions to  inquire  into  and  report  upon  things 
which  might  be  of  value  to  the  Eussian  people, 
but  as  a  sudden  and  irresistible  deluge  of  wild 
barbarians  from  the  East,  the  horde  of  that 
greatest  of  all  conquerors  and  autocrats,  Jeng- 
hiz  Khan.  To  Europe,  waking  to  the  first  rays 
of  the  Eenaissance,  the  coming  of  these  savages 
was  as  though  the  mineral  kingdom  should  sud- 
denly rise  and  attack  trees  and  grain  and  grass. 
In  the  South,  however,  thanks  to  the  knowledge 
and  practice  of  Eoman  arms,  the  plague  was 
stayed  and  finally  beaten  off;  but  over  Eussia, 
disorganized  and  cut  off  from  this  advantage, 
the  horde  swept  on,  and  for  more  than  two  cen- 
turies raped  and  pillaged  and  oppressed  at  will. 
And  all  this  while  the  rest  of  Europe,  to  which 
at  this  time  a  half-Christian  was  more  execrable 
than  a  heathen,  looked  on  with  unconcern,  pos- 
sibly with  gratification  that  God  at  last  was  pun- 
ishing the  heresy  of  her  neighbor.  During  these 
centuries  of  outrage  such  as  Italy  never  experi- 
enced in  the  darkest  days  of  the  Goths  and 

39 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

the  Vandals,  the  spirit  of  the  Russian  people 
was  broken.  Little  wonder  that  among  these 
cousins  of  the  Gaul,  the  Saxon,  and  the  German, 
revolutions  rise  and  spend  themselves  in  foam. 

This  was  the  call  from  Asia — a  call  that  has 
since  been  answered  even  to  the  shores  of  the 
Pacific. 

With  the  ebbing  of  this  dark  tide  that  had 
overwhelmed  her,  at  last  Russia  awoke  to  the 
fact  that  she  was  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  Eu- 
rope; or  at  least  one  man  awoke  and,  looking 
about  him,  became  aware  that  during  the  long 
night  of  his  country's  enslavement  a  new  day 
had  dawned  in  the  South,  while  in  the  North 
all  was  torpor  and  darkness.  What  Alfred  the 
Great  is  to  early  Britain,  that  Peter  the  Great, 
in  his  crude  way,  is  to  Russia.  If  ever  a  race 
of  people  found  adequate  expression  in  one  per- 
son, that  race  was  the  Slavic  race  in  their  great 
czar.  As  an  acorn  enfolds  an  oak,  the  type  of  a 
great  forest,  so  Peter  the  Great  enfolded  the 
Russian  people.  Into  him  they  have  flowed 
from  the  twilight  of  time,  and  from  him  they 
have  gone  out  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  And 
this  was  one  of  his  dreams,  that  his  country 
might  have  ample  boundaries. 

But  wide  boundaries  are  not  greatness.  Had 
40 


RUSSIA  AND  THE  OPEN  SEA 

Peter  imagined  that  they  were,  he  would  prob- 
ably have  taken  his  place  in  history  among  those 
secondary  men  whose  names  are  known  simply 
as  conquerors.  But  it  was  primarily  of  the  Rus- 
sian people  he  was  thinking,  of  the  Russian  peo- 
ple taking  their  place  and  marching  in  the  van 
with  the  other  peoples  of  Europe.  Former 
czars  had  made  pilgrimages  to  Asia,  to  pros- 
trate themselves  at  the  feet  of  their  Tartar  mas- 
ters; Peter 's  pilgrimage  was  in  the  opposite  di- 
rection, to  Prussia,  to  Holland,  to  England. 
Here,  then,  we  have  a  third  instance  of  that 
Slavic  hunger  for  higher  things  and  that  willing- 
ness to  learn  from  her  more  advanced  brothers, 
uttering  itself  in  this  case  not  in  invitations  to  a 
neighboring  people  for  "order  and  justice,"  or 
in  ambassadors  seeking  the  fittest  religion,  but 
in  a  journey  of  the  czar  himself  for  the  purpose 
of  bringing  back  to  Russia  the  much-needed 
civilization  of  Europe. 

Only  the  keenest  realization  of  the  immense 
chasm  that  yawned  between  these  countries  and 
his  own  can  account  for  the  tremendous  energy 
with  which  this  man,  single-handed  and  in  the 
face  of  such  opposition  as  few  reformers  have 
ever  encountered,  set  to  work  to  dispel  the  bar- 
barism of  his  people.  Having  discovered  civili- 

41 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

zation  and  having  tasted  its  sunshine,  he  deter- 
mined that  his  country  should  share  it  and  that 
never  again  should  she  go  back  into  the.  dark- 
ness. Soldier,  statesman,  absorber  and  dissemi- 
nator of  knowledge,  builder,  captain  of  industry, 
brutal,  of  course,  as  his  age  was  brutal,  but 
with  a  brutality  aimed  mainly  at  the  great  goal 
toward  which  he  was  striving,  it  is  exceedingly 
doubtful  if  there  can  be  found  in  all  history  an- 
other ruler  who  wrought  so  strenuously  and  per- 
sistently for  the  elevation  of  his  people  as  didi 
this  great  czar.  Petrograd,  that  "window  into 
Europe'*  which  he  built,  and  through  which 
he  expected  the  sunlight  would  shine  forever — 
Petrograd,  rising  out  of  the  filled-up  swamps  of 
the  Neva,  is  only  a  symbol  of  these  gigantic 
labors.  No  wonder  the  Eussian  people  think 
of  his  spirit  as  still  with  them,  shaping  and  di- 
recting their  destiny. 

Unfortunately,  the  work  so  energetically  be- 
gun has  not  been  carried  on.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  the  great  Catharine,  who  introduced  into 
Eussia  the  arts  of  Europe,  as  Peter  the  Great 
had  introduced  the  mechanics,  subsequent  czars 
have,  for  the  most  part,  been  cast  in  a  different 
mold.  Eussia  is  still  the  backward  brother  of 
Europe.  The  short  day  has  given  place  to  twi- 

42 


RUSSIA  AND  THE  OPEN  SEA 

light.  The  " window  into  Europe"  has  been 
closed.  There  is  probably  a  wider  gap  between 
the  Russia  of  to-day  and  those  enlightened  lands 
which  Peter  visited  than  there  was  before  he  be- 
gan his  work. 

What  is  the  reason  for  this?  Why  is  it,  for 
instance,  that  Russia  is  shoulder  to  shoulder 
with  the  most  advanced  nations  in  rifles  and 
behind  the  most  backward  in  schools?  Along 
her  borders,  where  her  armies  mingle  with  the 
armies  of  other  nations,  she  seems  one  of  them. 
But  pass  into  the  interior  that  the  great  Peter 
labored  so  long  and  so  prodigiously  to  waken 
and  transform,  and  you  have  passed,  as  far  as 
the  great  mass  of  the  people  is  concerned,  from 
a  world  of  stir  into  a  world  of  slumber,  from  the 
age  of  the  biplane  into  an  age  not  far  removed 
from  that  of  the  early  Gauls.  What,  I  repeat, 
is  the  explanation  of  this  tragedy,  this  retarded 
growth  of  millions  upon  millions  of  people? 

It  is  easy  enough  to  lay  it  upon  the  czars, 
upon  the  bureaucracy,  that  wide-reaching,  nev- 
er-relaxing hand  within  whose  grasp  generation 
after  generation  has  lain  benighted  and  help- 
less; but  there  is  another  cause,  one  of  which 
possibly  even  czarism  and  bureaucracy  are  re- 
sults. 

43 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

Peter  the  Great  had  a  third  dream,  one  which 
lay  as  close  if  not  closer  to  his  heart  than  either 
of  the  other  two,  and  one  which  his  country  has 
ever  since  labored  with  vast  zeal  and  patience  to 
fulfil — a  dream  of  the  open  sea! 

It  is  astonishing  that  this  inland-born  man 
should  have  heard  almost  from  his  birth  the  call 
of  the  distant  oceans.  It  is  pathetic  to  watch 
him  in  his  early  boyhood,  like  some  interior- 
exiled  viking,  groping  for  his  native  waters.  If 
one  can  tell  him  something  of  the  sea,  with  what 
hunger  he  clasps  him  to  his  bosom !  A  toy  boat 
upon  a  canal  near  his  home,  and  he  is  restless 
until  a  whole  flotilla  is  launched ;  and  even  this 
only  adds  to  his  hunger.  He  must  have  larger 
boats  that  he  can  manage  and  sail.  And  once 
he  has  learned  this  upon  a  neighboring  lake, 
there  wakes  within  him  the  call  of  the  seas. 

Immediately  upon  attaining  his  majority,  he 
starts  for  the  north,  to  Archangel,  and  is  the 
first  of  all  the  rulers  of  his  land  to  look  upon 
wide  waters.  And  having  looked  upon  them,  he 
resolves  that  his  country,  too,  shall  look  upon 
them ;  shall,  like  other  nations,  have  ports  and 
ships  and  commerce.  For  even  then  Peter  di- 
vined the  meaning  of  the  sea ;  and  straightway 
he  set  to  work  to  learn  the  art  of  the  sea,  the 

44 


RUSSIA  AND  THE  OPEN  SEA 

construction  and  management  of  ships.  And 
how  like  a  modern  American  he  began,  this  czar 
of  all  the  Eussias !  Just  as  before  in  learning 
the  new  art  of  European  warfare,  he  had  begun, 
this  autocrat,  as  a  drummer-boy  in  the  regiment, 
that  he  might  master  the  whole  thing  from  top 
to  bottom,  so  he  began  again  at  the  bottom, 
sweeping  the  deck,  serving  in  the  cabin,  fetching 
coals  for  the  skipper's  pipe.  Then,  and  then 
only,  up  the  masts.  And  in  learning  to  build 
them  it  was  the  same,  not  with  guides,  but  in  a 
workman's  blouse,  in  the  shipyards  of  foreign 
lands.  And  from  here  came  memorable  words, 
which  he  wrote  back — words  which  have  ever 
since  been  the  cry  of  his  country,  "It  is  not  land 
I  want,  but  water."  Within  a  few  years  after 
his  return  home  he  had  won  for  his  people  ports 
on  the  Baltic,  the  Black,  and  the  Caspian. 

But  why  did  Peter  dream  of  the  open  sea? 
For  the  same  reason  that,  from  the  dawn  of 
time,  humanity  has  dreamed  of  the  sea.  Land 
is  existence,  but  water  is  life.  The  open  sea 
is  the  open  mind.  The  oceans  are  civiliza- 
tion. 

Watch  the  movements  of  the  progressive 
races.  It  is  from  land  to  water,  from  water  to 
wider  water.  First  there  are  the  rivers,  like 

45 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

the  Euphrates  and  the  Nile,  and  the  civilizations 
upon  their  banks  are  vastly  superior  to  the  civili- 
zations of  the  interiors.  But  once  the  seas  are 
discovered  and  mastered,  the  civilizations  of  the 
rivers  sink  into  second  place,  and  nations  like 
Greece  and  Rome  wake  into  life.  Then  the 
oceans.  And  once  the  oceans  are  conquered, 
you  have  France  and  Germany  and  England. 

Suppose  back  there  in  the  long  ago,  a  naked 
sword  had  been  laid  across  the  mouths  of  the 
Euphrates  and  the  Nile.  And  suppose  human- 
ity, having  discovered  an  overland  route  to  the 
southern  peninsulas  of  Europe,  had  found  bar- 
ring their  further  march  another  sword  across 
the  Strait  of  Gibraltar.  And  suppose  that 
thereafter  all  overland  routes  to  the  oceans  had 
been  blocked,  say,  with  long  lines  of  cannon. 
If  the  democracy  of  Greece  never  arose  on  the 
Euphrates,  and  the  strong  type  of  the  independ- 
ent Roman  never  developed  on  the  Nile,  or  if, 
in  the  second  case,  that  sane,  stable  constitu- 
tional government  that  is  the  pride  of  England 
never  bloomed  in  Greece,  and  the  splendid  edu- 
cational system  that  is  the  pride  of  Germany 
never  flourished  in  Rome,  upon  which  lands 
would  the  blame  lie,  upon  those  on  the  inside  or 
upon  those  on  the  outside,  upon  those  that  found 

46 


RUSSIA  AND  THE  OPEN  SEA 

the  sword  across  their  path  or  upon  those  that 
laid  it  there? 

Almost  from  the  day  that  Peter  the  Great  set 
forth  to  blaze  for  his  country  a  way  to  the  open 
sea  Eussia  has  found  across  her  path  the  swords 
of  virtually  all  the  nations  of  Europe  and  Asia. 
And  the  sword  most  often  confronting  her  in 
her  march  toward  the  open  sea,  toward  free- 
dom, commerce,  civilization,  has  been  the  sword 
of  England,  mistress  of  the  seas.  In  the  West, 
in  the  South,  in  the  East,  as  a  silent  menace  or  a 
sweeping  blade,  leading  the  way  or  urging 
others  on,  but  always  there  with  unwavering 
purpose,  is  the  sword  of  England — England,  the 
Enlightener ! 

And  what  have  been  the  consequences  of  this 
" caging  the  bear,"  as  it  is  facetiously  called  in 
the  chancelleries  of  Europe,  this  shutting  out  of 
Eussia  from  intercourse  with  civilized  nations 
and  compelling  her  to  be  eternally  the  com- 
panion of  barbarians?  Within  a  little  more 
than  half  a  century,  to  go  back  no  further,  there 
have  been  four  great  wars,  every  one  of  them,  if 
we  will  only  look  behind  the  mask  of  diplomatic 
pretext,  clearly  traceable  to  this  one  cause,  this 
arresting  of  a  great  people  in  its  march  toward 
civilization. 

47 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

First,  there  are  the  Crimean  War,  and  the 
Russo-Turkish  War.  Though  the  professed 
reason  of  these  was  to  protect  the  Christians 
and  put  an  end  to  Turkish  atrocities  in  the  Bal- 
kan States,  no  one  familiar  with  the  eternal 
pressure  behind  Russian  diplomacy  can  fail  to 
see  that  the  underlying  motive  of  these  two 
wars  was  the  acquisition  of  Constantinople.  In 
the  Crimean  War  this  ambition  was  thwarted 
by  England,  who,  with  the  help  of  France  and 
Sardinia,  clasped  hands  with  Turkey  against 
Russia,  with  the  Moslem  against  the  Christian, 
with  the  brown  man  against  the  white  man. 
And  all  for  the  purpose  of  laying  her  sword 
across  the  Dardanelles  and  preventing  Russia's 
exit  to  the  Mediterranean. 

In  the  Russo-Turkish  War,  after  she  had  won 
from  Turkey,  by  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano,  a 
protectorate  over  the  Slavic  Balkan  States, 
whose  liberation  from  Turkey  she  alone  had  se- 
cured, Russia  was  forced  by  the  European  pow- 
ers, at  the  Berlin  Congress,  to  withdraw,  where- 
upon the  spoils  of  the  war  were  very  largely 
seized  by  Austria,  a  power  that  had  no  racial 
connection  whatever  with  the  Balkan  peoples 
and  one  that  had  lifted  no  hand  to  put  a  stop  to 
the  outrages  of  the  Turk. 

48 


RUSSIA  AND  THE  OPEN  SEA 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  what  England 
thinks  to-day  of  the  statesmanship  which  she 
displayed  in  these  two  wars.  Does  she  think  it 
was  a  good  bargain  to  exchange  Eussia  for  Ger- 
many in  Turkey  and  Asia  Minor?  Is  Germany, 
seeking  land,  a  safer  neighbor  to  India  than 
Eussia  would  have  been,  seeking  the  open  sea? 
Is  it  well  for  England  to-day  that  for  de- 
cades she  has  been  the  self-appointed  protector 
of  the  Turk? 

If  Eussia  had  been  allowed  to  take  Constanti- 
nople, which,  had  Europe  not  interfered,  she 
could  undoubtedly  have  done,  there  is  no  ques- 
tion that  Europe  would  have  escaped  many  of 
those  troubles  which  have  plagued  her  in  the  in- 
tervening years.  For  there  is  little  doubt  that 
Eussia  would  have  policed  Turkey  on  the  one 
hand,  and,  on  the  other,  who  will  say  that  she 
would  not  have  kept  peace  in  the  Balkans  f  Not 
England,  not  Germany,  but  Eussia  is  the  natural 
bridge  between  Europe  and  Asia,  and  by  every 
consideration  of  race  and  religion  and  character 
is  the  logical  power  to  keep  order  in  the  near 
East.  For  be  it  remembered,  that  not  only  the 
Balkan  States  but  many  of  the  provinces  of 
Austria  itself,  are  old  Slavic  territory  and  the 
people  there  are  full  brothers  of  the  Eussians. 

49 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

Indeed  for  years,  thirty  millions  of  Slavs  have 
cried  out  to  their  elder  brother  for  liberation 
from  the  Austrian  yoke  and  other  bordering 
millions  for  an  ending  of  the  Austrian  menace. 
But  for  the  meddlesome  interference  of  powers 
that  had  no  rightful  claim  upon  this  territory, 
Russia  would  here  have  had  her  harbor,  a  small 
price,  it  would  seem,  for  the  elimination  of  those 
crimes  which  for  more  than  half  a  century  have 
shocked  the  civilized  world. 

But  with  all  the  powers  of  Europe  arrayed 
against  her  from  the  very  beginning  in  the  West, 
and  now  shut  out  in  the  South,  Russia,  as  a  last 
hope,  was  obliged  to  set  forth  on  that  long  jour- 
ney across  Asia  to  the  far  East.  And  there, 
strange  to  say,  she  was  allowed  her  heart's  de- 
sire— allowed,  that  is,  to  spend  millions  in  the 
construction  of  her  great  harbor.  Is  England 
asleep?  Are  the  nations  of  Europe  aware  of 
what  is  going  on?  Or  is  it  that  they  have  come 
to  see  that  perhaps  Russia  has  the  same  right 
to  civilization  as  themselves?  Not  at  all.  The 
sword  is  a  little  late  in  appearing,  that  is  all. 
And  again  we  have  a  war,  this  time  not  with 
England,  but  with  England's  ally,  Japan. 

And  now  we  are  in  the  midst  of  a  fourth  war 
as  clearly  traceable  as  are  the  other  three  to 

50 


RUSSIA  AND  THE  OPEN  SEA 

this  fatuous  determination  to  keep  Eussia  from 
the  open  sea.  Or  let  us  rather  say  this  present 
war  is  the  aftermath  of  the  other  three,  the  in- 
evitable aftermath.  If  Eussia  were  a  less  pow- 
erful nation  than  she  is,  or  if  the  spirit  of  liberty 
were  dead  in  the  Slavic  race,  these  three  wars 
would  probably  have  been  sufficient.  But  with 
a  territory  three  times  as  large  as  all  the  rest  of 
Europe,  with  a  population  larger  than  that  of 
England,  France,  and  Germany  combined,  and 
of  kindred  blood  with  those  nations  that,  despite 
every  obstacle,  have  won  their  way  to  the  oceans 
and  a  world  life,  it  would  have  been  strange  in- 
deed had  the  Eussian  people  resigned  them- 
selves to  the  barbarism  of  the  steppes.  Instead, 
she  turns  back  to  that  old  pass  where  for  more 
than  two  centuries  her  dreams  have  centered 
and  where,  as  we  have  seen,  she  logically  be- 
longs, and  with  a  vigor  and  determination 
worthy  of  her  Aryan  blood  and  the  high  aim  for 
which  she  is  battling,  she  begins  once  more  her 
struggle  for  the  open  sea.  And  that  which  hap- 
pens is  what  always  happens  when  every  safety- 
valve  through  which  a  great  people  can  express 
itself  is  closed.  There  is  a  rushing  of  mighty 
forces  toward  those  weaker  seams  in  the  Bal- 
kans, and — the  explosion ! 

51 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

It  is  fortunate  that  circumstances  have  again 
drawn  Russia  Europeward,  for  Russia  needs 
Europe,  needs  her  now  as  in  the  past  when  more 
than  once,  as  we  have  seen,  she  held  her  hands 
out  toward  the  West.  And  Europe,  aristo- 
cratic and  suffering  from  a  false  conceit  of 
cultural  values,  will  sooner  or  later  discover, 
as  I  shall  try  to  show  in  my  next  chapter,  that 
all  these  years  she  might  have  been  learning  as 
well  as  teaching.  Especially  is  it  fortunate  not' 
only  for  Russia  and  England,  but  for  the  world, 
that  England  has  found  it  to  her  advantage  to 
join  hands  with  Russia.  England,  whose  life  is 
a  world  life,  can,  if  she  will,  become  the  door- 
opener  for  the  Russian  people.  England,  the 
advanced,  can  become  the  tutor  of  Russia,  the 
backward.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  England  real- 
izes her  great  opportunity,  and  will  avail  herself 
of  the  present  crisis  to  take  her  sword  from  the 
path  of  the  Russian  people  in  their  march  to- 
ward civilization.  Credit  may  still  be  won  by 
yielding  to  the  inevitable.  And  it  is  inevitable. 
Turkey  must  go  back  to  her  ancient  home  in 
Asia  where  ample  tracts  of  fertile  land  lie  wait- 
ing her;  and  Russia  must  come  out  of  her  long 
prison  to  the  free  and  open  seas. 


52 


THE  DEMOCEATIC  RUSSIANS 


m 

THE  DEMOCRATIC  RUSSIANS 

OF  all  the  changes  that  have  come  over  the 
thought  of  the  world  within  the  last  few 
decades,  none  is  so  remarkahle  as  that  which 
has  to  do  with  democracy.  For  centuries  the 
word  was  confined  to  the  narrow  circle  of  poli- 
tics. A  democracy  was  a  kind  of  government ; 
a  people  was  democratic  if  it  had  won  for  it- 
self the  right  to  make  its  own  laws.  In  the 
matter  of  religion  they  might  have  nothing  to 
say;  a  few  might  own  the  land  and  enjoy  the 
revenues  of  industry;  there  might  be  a  dozen 
slaves  to  one  free  man :  but  if  the  citizens  were 
free  to  meet  and  discuss  public  affairs  and  make 
laws,  that  country  or  city  was  a  democracy,  that 
people  was  a  democratic  people.  It  is  un- 
doubtedly true  that  among  millions,  even  in 
enlightened  lands,  this  old  habit  of  thought  still 
persists,  but  gradually  all  over  the  world  the 
new  idea  is  making  way.  Certainly  the  leaders 
of  humanity  everywhere  are  aware  of  this  revo- 
lution that  has  taken  place,  and  the  unparal- 

55 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

leled  changes  which  to-day  are  shaking  and  re- 
casting the  world  are  due  chiefly  to  this  new 
vision  that  democracy  means  something  more 
than  government. 

Indeed,  no  word  in  the  language  has  so  en- 
larged its  circle  as  has  this  word  democracy. 
Faster  than  we  have  been  able  to  follow  it,  the 
commotion  has  spread  to  the  very  bounds  of 
life.  State,  church,  school,  industry,  the  rela- 
tions of  man  to  man — all  these  are  being  jostled 
by  this  new  unifying  force. 

It  is  this  sudden  crowding  of  institutions 
upon  the  soul  of  man  and  their  demand  for  new 
interpretation  and  reshaping  that  has  set  the 
ground  to  trembling  beneath  our  feet,  and  has 
startled  us  into  consciousness  that  the  hour  for 
great  things  has  come.  Democracy,  the  power 
of  the  people — that  is  the  tocsin  of  the  new  age. 
Never  before  in  the  history  of  the  world  was 
it  so  important  to  get  clearly  in  mind  the  mean- 
ing of  a  word  as  it  is  to-day  to  get  the  meaning 
of  the  word  democracy.  For  upon  our  concep- 
tion of  this  one  word  depends  not  only  the  peace, 
but  also  the  well-being  of  every  man,  woman  and 
child  of  the  generations  to  come. 

To  start  with,  then,  let  us  put  away  once  for 
all  the  view  of  democracy  as  a  phase  of  govern- 

56 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  RUSSIANS 

ment,  and  with  mind  and  heart  open  and  un- 
afraid journey  out  to  the  rim  of  that  wide  circle 
and  see  if  we  cannot  spell  out  the  larger  meaning 
of  this  powerful  word  that  for  years  has  been 
making  itself  flesh  among  men,  and  is  now 
through  blood  and  death  thrusting  the  old  order 
into  the  trenches,  there  to  be  buried  forever. 

Perhaps  we  can  best  arrive  at  what  we  are 
after  if,  instead  of  attempting  to  keep  the  whole 
world  in  view,  we  separate  some  part  of  it, 
as  a  chemist  takes  a  part  of  an  element  and 
finds  out  the  nature  and  laws  of  the  whole,  no 
matter  how  widely  scattered  it  may  be,  whether 
it  is  buried  in  the  earth  or  blazing  in  the  gases 
of  the  farthest  sun.  And  probably  no  land  will 
afford  a  better  illustration  of  the  lights  and 
shadows  that  play  about  the  word  democracy 
than  will  Russia,  a  country  where,  if  looked 
at  from  the  old  point  of  view,  no  such  thing 
as  democracy  exists.  And  it  is  true  that 
writers  on  democracy  have  a  way  of  ig- 
noring  Russia  or  of  using  her  as  a  dark 
background  against  which  to  bring  out  and 
emphasize  the  democratic  institutions  espe- 
cially of  England  and  the  United  States.  In 
these  latter,  it  is  pointed  out,  the  power  of  the 
people  is  supreme ;  whereas  in  Russia  even  the 

57 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

ideal  of  free  institutions  has  not  yet  been  born. 
Russia  and  the  czar  are  synonymous.  But  these 
writers  also  have  a  way  of  ignoring  the  larger 
circle,  of  using  words  with  the  meaning  that 
attached  to  them  a  hundred  years  ago.  To 
classify  Russia  as  an  autocracy  and  then  pass 
on,  as  is  commonly  done,  is  just  as  unfair  as  it 
is  to  speak  of  England  as  a  monarchy  and  stop 
at  that.  To  find  the  heart  of  any  land  you  must 
go  below  the  government.  Especially  is  this 
true  in  Russia  where  under  the  iron  regime  of 
government  lies  a  life  peculiarly  rich  in  color 
and  in  sentiment,  a  life  of  which  we  in  the 
western  world  know  far  too  little. 

Democracy  is  the  passionate  movement  of  a 
people  toward  power  in  every  social  endeavor, 
and  it  is  the  presence  of  this  passion  in  a  people, 
not  their  form  of  government,  that  determines 
their  part  in  the  future  renovation  of  the  world. 

With  new  test  of  democracy  in  hand,  let  us 
consider  the  Russian  people  and  what  their  rise 
to  power  augurs  for  the  world.  Is  the  Slav, 
whose  light  or  shadow,  as  it  is  variously  inter- 
preted, fills  the  northern  horizon  of  Europe  and 
Asia,  a  friend  or  a  foe  of  democracy?  That  is 
by  far  the  greatest  question  that  has  to  do  with 
the  present  war.  If  he  is  a  foe,  there  can  be  no 

58 


THE  DEMOCEATIC  RUSSIANS 

permanent  peace  until  he  is  destroyed  or  put 
down.  If  he  is  a  friend,  there  is  hope  for  a 
long  period  of  international  cooperation  and 
brotherhood. 

In  the  popular  imagination,  which  invariably 
seizes  upon  a  single  point  and  rushes  to  a  gen- 
eralization, three  things  stand  out  as  represen- 
tative of  Eussia :  the  czar,  the  Cossacks,  and  the 
Siberian  penal  system.  The  vast  unknown 
spaces  between  these  three,  where  the  Eussian 
millions  come  and  go  have  been  filled  in  with 
these  dark  colors  of  oppression  and  crime  to 
harmonize  with  the  objects  in  the  foreground; 
so  that  to-day,  in  almost  every  land,  especially 
where  the  light  of  truth  comes  dimly  through  the 
painted  windows  of  the  newspapers,  a  Eussian, 
be  he  muzhik  or  grand  duke,  hand-worker  or 
brain-worker,  is  looked  upon  as  a  police  official 
in  disguise,  as  a  Siberian  exile  who  knows  the 
inner  workings  of  the  Eevolutionary  movement, 
or  at  least  as  one  of  those  wild  riders  about 
whom  many  hair-raising  stories  have  been  told. 
Just  so  for  decades  in  the  minds  of  the  Euro- 
pean every  American  was  either  an  Indian 
fighter  or  a  cowboy. 

It  is  of  course  always  the  daredevil,  roman- 
tic elements  in  a  people  that  first  catch  atten- 

59 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

tion,  and  these  are  bandied  about  and  played 
upon  until  they  become  national  traits.  How 
long  it  will  take  the  Russian  people  to  eradicate 
this  popular  misconception  and  stand  forth  in 
their  true  character,  it  would  be  hard  to  say. 
Possibly  as  long  as  it  will  take  present-day 
America  to  live  down  in  the  minds  of  the  Euro- 
pean the  idea  that  every  American  is  a  brag- 
gart or  a  millionaire.  Until  a  people  has  had 
an  opportunity  to  create  its  own  institutions,  it 
is  obviously  unfair  to  draw  conclusions  with  re- 
gard to  their  character  from  abuses  connected 
with  such  institutions.  Probably  in  no  country 
on  earth,  as  we  shall  see  later,  is  the  government 
so  misrepresentative  of  the  people  as  is  the  Rus- 
sian Government.  The  Siberian  penal  system, 
the  Cossacks  as  a  military  institution,  as  well  as 
all  those  persecutions  with  which  the  whole 
world  has  been  made  familiar,  are  creatures  of 
the  Government,  not  of  the  people. 

But  it  is  the  people  we  are  here  concerned 
with,  for  it  is  the  qualities  of  the  people  that 
eventually  will  show  forth  in  the  institutions 
of  Russia,  just  as  the  character  of  the  Saxon 
has  asserted  itself  in  English  institutions,  and 
the  character  of  the  old  Teuton  that  has  molded 
Germany  into  what  it  is. 

60 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  RUSSIANS 

What,  then,  are  the  deeper  traits  of  the  Rus- 
sian muzhik,  or  peasant  f  For  what  the  Russian 
peasant  is  to-day,  that,  quickened  and  refined  by 
education  and  by  the  stir  of  larger  interests,  will 
the  Russian  nation  be  to-morrow.  What  rudi- 
mentary idea  of  his  own  rights  and  the  rights 
of  others  lies  enfolded  in  the  slow  brain  of  this 
shaggy  fellow  of  the  steppes? 

Let  us  enter  at  random  any  one  of  the  thou- 
sands of  villages  that  dot  the  immeasurable 
spaces  of  this  vast  land  and  examine  in  the 
seed  this  world-shaper  of  to-morrow. 

Long  ago,  as  far  back  as  we  can  see,  the  Rus- 
sian had  emerged  from  the  wandering  state  of 
the  nomad  and  had  settled  down  to  till  the  soil. 
And  after  twelve  hundred  years  it  is  with  this 
occupation  that  by  far  the  largest  part  of  the 
people  is  still  engaged.  Therefore  it  is  the  vil- 
lage, not  the  city,  that  is  the  center  of  national 
life,  and  it  is  to  the  village  that  we  must  go  if 
we  wish  to  get  light  upon  Russia's  future. 
Just  here  possibly  has  arisen  the  mistake  we 
have  made  in  our  judgment  of  the  Russian  peo- 
ple. It  is  through  Petrograd  we  have  seen 
them,  a  glass  too  highly  colored  by  foreign  influ- 
ences, and  the  crimes  of  a  corrupt  aristocracy 
to  aff ord  a  fair  view  of  a  people  whose  life  from 

61 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

time  immemorial  has  been  one  with  the  open 
fields. 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  us  is  that  the  Rus- 
sian village  is  a  democracy  similar  to  the  Saxon 
village  of  early  England.  But  in  the  Saxon 
there  has  always  been  an  element  which  rebelled 
against  social  control.  The  Saxon  is  by  nature 
an  individualist.  He  is  willing  to  take  his 
chances  in  a  general  mix-up.  And  therefore  it 
is  that  at  the  earliest  opportunity  he  threw  off 
the  shackles  of  collective  ownership.  In  that 
long  and  successful  assault  which  the  barons  of 
England  made  upon  the  people's  land,  and 
which  I  shall  treat  more  at  length  in  the  follow- 
ing chapter,  the  Englishman  fell  far  short  of  that 
unconquerable  spirit  of  resistance  and  counter- 
assault  which  we  think  of  as  the  natural  reaction 
of  the  Saxon  to  injustice.  Had  the  aggression 
been  political,  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  would 
have  shown  his  old  spirit.  It  is  this  inability 
of  the  Saxon  to  comprehend  the  larger  meaning 
of  democracy  that  has  made  England  what  it 
is — a  people  willing  to  see  their  land  taken  over 
by  the  barons,  though  it  means  starvation  for 
themselves.  For  this  is  right  in  line  with  the 
Saxon  theory  of  the  rights  of  the  individual, 
whereas  group  control  is  slavery.  The  wide- 

62 


THE  DEMOCEATIC  EUSSIANS 

spread  poverty  in  which  England  finds  herself 
to-day  is  due  to  this  excessive  individualism. 
The  age  of  cooperation  has  come,  and  the  Briton 
cannot  adjust  himself.  He  will  starve,  but  he 
will  not  give  up  his  lords. 

Let  us  now  pass  into  Russia,  the  land  of 
autocracy.  Here  we  see  an  exactly  opposite  de- 
velopment. Instead  of  the  baron  absorbing  the 
property  of  the  commune,  the  commune  is  suc- 
ceeding to  the  property  of  the  baron.  It  is  the 
village,  not  the  individual,  that  owns  the  land, 
and  at  irregular  intervals  redistributes  the  land, 
though  not  the  homes,  among  the  members  of 
the  commune,  or  mir,  as  it  is  called, — every  fam- 
ily is  a  member,  and  is  represented  by  its  head — 
according  to  the  size  and  the  respective  needs  of 
the  families.  And  there  is  here  none  of  that  in- 
stinctive rebellion  on  the  part  of  the  individuals 
composing  it,  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  submis- 
sion to  its  will  which  to-day,  to  any  man  of 
Germanic  blood,  is  irritating  and  inconceivable. 
While  in  Eussia,  too,  there  is  poverty,  this  con- 
dition is  at  least  not  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
people  are  outcasts  from  the  land.  That  is  the 
chief  difference,  one  might  say,  between  Eussia 
and  the  "civilized"  nations,  namely,  that 
whereas  in  the  former  the  poverty  of  the  people 

63 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

is  due  to  the  Government,  to  what  it  has  done 
and  what  it  has  left  undone,  conditions  in  the 
latter  are  due  to  the  people  themselves.  And 
therefore  while  in  Russia  education  and  the  re- 
sultant political  changes  may  remedy  the  condi- 
tion,  in  the  more  " advanced*'  nations  an  im- 
provement can  be  brought  about  only  by  a  social 
revolution.  And  it  is  worth  mentioning  in  pass- 
ing that  the  starost,  or  head,  of  the  Russian  vil- 
lage never  seeks  the  office,  but  has  it  thrust  upon 
him,  another  illustration  of  the  difference  be- 
tween the  mild  Slav  and  the  assertive  Saxon. 

Though  unquestionably  there  are  evils  con- 
nected with  this  system  of  agricultural  com- 
munism— many  of  these  could  undoubtedly  be 
eliminated  or  at  least  lessened  by  the  establish- 
ment of  schools — consider  what  it  means  for  a 
people  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  a 
great  land  to  own  their  homes,  rude  though 
these  homes  may  be,  and  a  few  acres  of  land  to 
which,  if  for  any  reason  they  have  left  them, 
they  may  return  in  their  old  age  or  during  those 
times  when  work  has  become  scarce  in  the  large 
centers  of  population.  Is  there  any  compen- 
sation for  this  in  the  consciousness  enjoyed  by 
the  expropriated  masses  of  the  English  people, 
and  other  people  as  well,  that  at  least  they  have 

64 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  EUSSIANS 

remained  loyal  to  the  sacred  principles  of  indi- 
vidual freedom  T 

No  better  illustration  of  the  fundamental  dif- 
ference between  the  Saxon  and  the  Slav  can  be 
found  than  that  afforded  by  the  respective  ways 
in  which  Saxon  America  solved  the  slave  prob- 
lem and  Slavic  Eussia  the  serf  problem.  Pass- 
ing over  the  fact  that  in  America  it  required 
half  a  century  of  the  most  active  propaganda  to 
convince  the  people,  even  the  people  of  the 
North,  that  slavery  was  wrong,  whereas  in  Eus- 
sia no  such  extensive  agitation  was  required, 
we  come  to  the  still  wider  chasm  that  yawns  be- 
tween the  ways  in  which,  after  their  emancipa- 
tion, the  slave  and  the  serf  were  treated  in  their 
respective  countries.  So  obsessed  is  the  Saxon 
mind  with  the  idea  that  freedom  is  a  matter  of 
politics  that  it  seemed  even  to  the  abolitionist 
that  ample  justice  had  been  done  the  negro 
when,  after  his  liberation,  he  was  given  the 
vote.  In  Eussia,  on  the  other  hand,  where  the 
people  are  unpractised  in  politics  and  see  things 
rather  in  their  social  aspect,  the  permanent  free- 
dom of  the  serf  seemed  to  depend  not  upon 
the  franchise,  but  upon  the  essentials  of  liveli- 
hood. Therefore,  while  the  armies  of  the  North 
at  the  point  of  the  bayonet  were  enforcing  the 

65 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

negro's  right  to  the  ballot,  the  Russian  Gov- 
ernment was  quietly  endowing  its  fifty  million 
serfs  with  land.  And  when  we  remember  that 
in  both  cases  the  emancipated  peoples  were  a 
childlike  people,  the  supreme  folly  of  the  Saxon- 
American  becomes  apparent.  And  he  himself 
has  become  aware  of  this,  or  rather  half  aware 
of  it;  for  while  he  has  reversed  his  policy,  he 
has  reversed  it  only  half-way.  He  has  recov- 
ered the  vote  which  he  gave  to  the  negro,  but 
the  latter 's  right  to  some  part  of  the  land  which 
he  has  tilled  for  centuries  the  Saxon-American 
will  not  concede.  And  the  reason  why  he  will 
not  concede  it  is  as  clear  as  day:  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  is  inherently  an  aristocrat. 

But  the  vast  energies  of  Russia  are  employed 
not  solely  in  agriculture,  though  it  is  her  tre- 
mendous resources  in  this  respect  that  have 
made  possible  the  enormous  expenditures  that 
have  been  required  for  the  building  of  her  great 
railroad  system  and  the  development  of  her 
gigantic  military  organization.  Along  with  her 
field  labor  there  goes  on,  especially  during  the 
six  months  when,  owing  to  the  severity  of  the 
climate,  field  labor  is  out  of  the  question,  that 
variety  of  craft  employment  which  is  necessary 
to  supply  the  simple  wants  of  an  agricultural 

66 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  EUSSIANS 

people.  And  here  again  is  emphasized  that  fun- 
damental difference  between  the  Bussian  people 
and  the  peoples  of  the  Germanic  race  which  we 
have  just  seen. 

In  studying  the  evolution  of  industry  among 
the  Germanic  peoples,  much  has  been  made  of 
the  gild.  And  wisely  so,  for  out  of  this  small 
institution  has  unfolded  the  whole  vast  and  com- 
plex structure  of  modern  industry.  All  those 
elements  of  efficiency  which  have  made  it  possi- 
ble for  this  race  to  conquer  the  markets  of  the 
world,  as  well  as  all  those  abuses  which,  in  their 
aggregate,  have  created  among  these  peoples 
a  menacing  proletariat,  lie  in  embryo  in  the  old 
gild  system.  It  requires  only  the  most  casual 
acquaintance  with  the  growth  of  this  institu- 
tion, as  it  developed  first  in  the  merchant  gild 
and  later  in  the  craft  gild,  to  discover  in  it  the 
germ  of  that  plutocratic  aristocracy  against 
which  the  forces  of  socialism  are  making  head. 

As  far  back  as  the  very  beginning  of  Eng- 
lish trade  the  right  to  buy  and  sell  was  enjoyed 
exclusively  by  the  owners  of  property,  just  as 
until  within  recent  times  the  right  to  vote  de- 
pended upon  a  similar  qualification.  And  these 
landowners  who  controlled  the  trade  of  the 
towns  came  very  shortly  to  control  the  towns 

67 


themselves  and  the  populations  of  the  towns. 
Inside  a  baronial  feudalism  there  grew  up  a 
feudalism  of  merchants  that  shut  the  people  out 
of  the  privileges  of  the  markets  and  grew  rich 
upon  the  tribute  which  they  levied  without  hav- 
ing recourse  to  the  laws.  It  was  against  the  in- 
tolerable oppression  of  this  aristocracy  of  mer- 
chants that  the  craft  gilds  were  formed,  organ- 
izations of  men  whose  hands  produced  those 
articles  from  the  sale  of  which  the  merchant 
class  became  rich.  And  under  the  assault  of 
these  artisan  bodies  the  power  of  the  merchant 
class  as  a  rival  for  leadership  in  the  commer- 
cial world  was  ended  forever.  Henceforth  the 
position  of  middleman,  the  buyer  and  seller,  was 
to  be  subordinate  to  that  of  the  producer.  But 
it  would  be  a  serious  mistake  to  confound  this 
artisan  producer  of  the  gild  system  with  the 
working-classes  of  to-day.  For  in  this  old  sys- 
tem of  production  it  was  the  master  workman, 
the  employer,  who  was  supreme  and  who  has 
since  expanded  into  the  powerful  figure  of  capi- 
talist-manufacturer, just  as  the  old  Saxon  and 
German  chiefs  through  the  centuries  have 
evolved  into  king  and  kaiser.  The  mass  of 
workers,  the  journeymen  and  apprentices,  had 
no  voice  whatever  in  determining  the  conditions 

68 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  EUSSIANS 

of  their  labor,  and  every  effort  which  they  made 
in  this  direction  was  for  centuries  successfully 
thwarted  by  the  controlling  industrial  aristoc- 
racy, at  first  by  the  sheer  power  of  their  organi- 
zations and  later  by  the  aid  of  the  state,  which 
they  had  finally  come  to  control. 

There  is  a  tragical  significance  in  the  term 
"  journeyman"  thus  early  applied  to  the  Eng- 
lish workman,  a  man  who  had  then,  and  was  to 
have  through  the  centuries,  no  permanent  home, 
but  was  to  wander  from  place  to  place  in  search 
of  work,  and  for  a  long  time,  as  we  know,  even 
this  wandering  was  forbidden  him.  To  what 
vast  numbers  has  this  journeyman  increased, 
this  free  Anglo-Saxon,  stripped  through  the 
ages  of  his  land  and  finally  of  his  very  tools  of 
industry!  Along  with  the  other  institutions 
which  this  world-conqueror  has  built,  is  the  in- 
stitution of  pauperism. 

Re-reading  the  history  of  England  in  the  new 
light  which  is  spreading  over  the  world,  it  is 
incomprehensible  that  we  should  ever  have  been 
beguiled  into  conceiving  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  as 
the  pioneer  of  democracy.  That  he  is  an  in- 
dividualist, and  that  his  dogged  insistence  upon 
the  rights  of  the  individual  in  matters  of  state 
has  been  of  incalculable  service,  there  can  be  no 

69 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

doubt;  but  times  have  shown  only  too  clearly 
that  individualism  may  be  as  great  a  foe  to  de- 
mocracy as  the  most  unrestricted  autocracy. 

Consider  now  the  Russian  workman.  Despite 
the  early  start  which  the  other  nations  had  over 
Russia  in  industrial  development,  there  has 
quietly  grown  up  in  the  latter  an  institution 
which  shows  her  in  reality  much  further  ad- 
vanced than  the  former  in  the  conception,  as 
well  as  in  the  establishment,  of  industrial  de- 
mocracy. This  institution,  which  is  known  as 
the  artel,  had  its  origin,  according  to  a  report 
recently  made  to  the  British  Government, 
among  the  Cossacks  of  the  Dnieper  before  the 
gild  system  appeared  in  England  or  in  Germany. 
Though  still  in  the  hunter  stage,  these  Cos- 
sacks perceived  a  truth  which  the  leading  na- 
tions of  Europe  and  America  are  only  now  be- 
ginning to  perceive,  namely,  that  it  is  better  to 
cooperate  than  to  compete.  And  so,  instead  of 
hunting  individually,  they  hunted  in  groups  and 
divided  the  game.  It  may  be  said  that  savages 
everywhere  have  done  the  same.  If  so,  it  is  to 
the  glory  of  the  Russian  people  that  they  have 
realized  that  in  certain  respects  the  savage  is 
superior  to  the  civilized  man.  Despite  the  al- 
lurements of  "civilization,  "they  have  continued 

70 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  RUSSIANS 

this  barbarous  practice  of  cooperating,  and  it 
is  to-day  to  be  found  in  such  widely  separated 
parts  of  the  country,  both  in  the  rural  districts 
and  in  the  cities,  as  to  prove  beyond  controversy 
that  the  Russian  is  instinctively  democratic;  in 
other  words,  that  he  naturally  foregoes  those 
pleasures  of  self-assertion  which  would  work 
to  the  injury  of  the  people  as  a  whole.  And 
therefore  we  find  him  grouped  in  these  artels, 
pure  democracies,  the  heads  of  which  are  elected 
by  the  members,  performing  all  sorts  of  work, 
from  the  simplest  field  labor  to  the  building  of 
houses  and  the  carrying  of  the  mails.  In  the 
craft  gilds  of  the  Teutonic  peoples  it  was  the 
master  workman  who  took  the  contract  or 
financed  the  home  manufacture,  and  who  ex- 
ploited to  his  heart's  content  those  whom  he 
hired,  whereas  in  the  artel  it  is  the  group  that 
is  the  master;  it  is  the  group  that,  like  a  joint- 
stock  company,  pools  its  labor,  and  sometimes 
its  capital,  and  shares  the  profits.  While  indi- 
vidualism in  industry  exists  in  Russia,  as  it 
does  in  every  other  commercial  nation,  the  artel 
exists  only  in  Russia,  and  may  therefore  be 
taken  as  an  index  of  what  the  Russian  people 
will  do  when  their  great  strength,  which  is  now 
wasting  itself  upon  the  borders,  is  called  back 

71 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

to  begin  the  work  of  internal  development.  For 
though  in  some  cases  this  institution  has  been 
sapped  and  has  gone  down  before  the  more  ag- 
gressive individualistic  system  of  the  Teutonic 
peoples,  as  the  national  consciousness  deepens, 
and  Russia  discovers  the  true  value  of  her  own 
creations  as  other  peoples  have  discovered 
theirs,  the  artel  will  replace  the  Cossack  in  the 
attention  of  the  world. 

Already  signs  are  at  hand  that  the  hour  of 
its  conquest  has  begun.  In  various  parts  of  the 
empire  these  artels  are  enlarging  the  sphere  of 
their  activities  and  are  entering  the  broader 
field  of  manufacture.  Rural  workshops,  called 
svietelkas,  owned  and  operated  by  these  artels, 
are  being  established  to  take  over  the  house- 
hold industries.  And  in  autocratic  Russia  the 
establishment  of  these  industrial  democracies  is 
being  encouraged  by  the  authorities.  Compare 
this  long  stride  which  the  Russians  have  made 
toward  a  wide  democracy  with  what  has  been 
done  in  America  by  the  labor-unions.  These 
latter  have  not  advanced  even  in  thought  beyond 
the  old  aristocratic  wage  system.  Their  aim 
has  been  toward  shortening  the  hours  and  rais- 
ing the  wage  of  labor,  not  at  all  toward  own- 
ership and  freedom.  Does  this  prove  nothing 

72 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  RUSSIANS 

as  to  the  relative  democracy  of  the  two  coun- 
tries? 

It  has  been  maintained,  however,  that  these 
democratic  tendencies  of  the  Russian  people  are 
simply  primitive  impulses  surviving  from  their 
barbaric  past,  and  that  these  will  be  outgrown 
and  left  behind,  as  they  invariably  are  as  a  peo- 
ple becomes  more  enlightened.  The  answer  to 
this  lies  deep  in  the  character  of  the  Russian 
people.  It  is  true  that  the  influence  of  sur- 
rounding nations  has  altered  Russian  institu- 
tions and  will  probably  continue  to  alter  them, 
but  we  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  within 
these  nations  themselves  a  profound  change  is 
taking  place — a  change  which,  when  in  full  force 
it  reaches  Russia,  will  tend  toward  the  preserva- 
tion rather  than  the  destruction  of  these  crude 
democracies.  Socialism,  which  is  democracy  at 
work  in  the  bread-getting  business  of  life,  will 
see  to  it  that  these  precious  seeds  are  not  de- 
stroyed. Just  what  modifications  this  influence 
will  bring  about  cannot  be  foretold.  The  de- 
ciding factor,  as  has  been  said,  will  be  the  char- 
acter of  the  Russian  people. 

But  how  does  the  Russian  character  fit  in  with 
the  aspirations  of  democracy?  How  shall  we 
reconcile  Russia  the  known  with  Russia  the  un- 

73 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

known,  the  Russia  of  the  Siberian  penal  system, 
of  pogroms  and  world-wide  conquests,  with  the 
Russia  of  the  mir,  of  the  art  el  and  the  svietelkaf 
It  would  be  futile  to  attempt  to  reconcile  them, 
for  no  reconciliation  is  possible.  We  are  here 
confronted  by  a  contradiction  similar  to  that 
which  we  face  in  nature  when  we  see  on  the  one 
hand  the  healing  of  a  bird's  wing  and  on  the 
other  the  tidal  wave  and  the  earthquake.  In 
no  other  nation  perhaps  are  these  two  qualities, 
kindness  and  cruelty,  brotherhood  and  tyranny, 
so  accentuated  as  they  are  in  this  twilight  land 
where  day  and  night  mingle.  Usually  it  is 
either  the  one  or  the  other  that  stands  out  as 
the  chief  characteristic,  but  in  Russia  it  is  both. 
Her  temperament  is  a  compound  of  opposites; 
her  history  is  a  contradiction.  On  every  page 
are  crimes  against  humanity  that  make  the 
heart  sink  and  the  blood  run  cold;  in  every 
chapter  are  monsters  compared  with  whom  the 
later  Caesars  are  novices.  On  the  other  hand, 
open  any  book  in  Russia,  whether  written  by 
friend  or  foe,  and  note  the  epithets  employed 
to  describe  the  Russian  people.  Dreamy,  im- 
aginative, inoffensive,  simple,  affectionate, 
childlike — all  these  are  almost  invariably  the 
words  one  meets.  Nowhere  is  there  a  hint  of 

74 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  RUSSIANS 

those  qualities  which  are  thrown  up  as  dark 
shadows  on  the  canvas  of  her  horizon.  It  is 
the  unanimous  verdict  among  even  casual  ob- 
servers that  the  Russian  people  "have  none  of 
those  stern  qualities  of  which  conquerors  are 
made. ' '  And  yet  almost  from  her  earliest  his- 
tory she  has  gone  forth  sword  in  hand.  This  is 
the  dualism  which  confronts  us.  While  with 
one  hand  she  is  conquering  the  world,  with  the 
other  she  is  writing  appeals  for  the  establish- 
ment of  a  Hague  court.  In  the  same  generation 
she  produces  a  Plehve  and  a  Tolstoy,  both  in  a 
way  true  to  the  national  type. 

No  one  living  in  countries  inhabited  by  Ger- 
manic or  Latin  peoples  can  possibly  understand 
the  Russian  nation,  even  that  part  of  it  which 
lies  west  of  the  Urals,  if  he  conceives  of  it  as 
an  entity  similar  to  that  of  his  own  nation. 
Russia  is  made  up  of  two  parts  that  have  never 
fused  and  that  never  can  fuse,  for  the  first  part 
is  to  the  second  as  a  school  of  sharks  is  to  a 
colony  of  corals.  The  real  Russian  people  lie 
almost  unseen  under  a  foreign  overlay  which 
has  somehow  got  itself  recognized  among  the 
nations  as  Russia,  and  which  began  to  be  de- 
posited more  than  a  thousand  years  ago  when 
Ruric  the  Norseman,  with  his  followers,  came 

75 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

in  and  established  themselves  as  rulers  of  the 
land. 

Then  for  more  than  two  centuries  the  land 
was  under  the  heel  of  the  Tartars,  another  con- 
quering people  who  left  behind  them  a  deep  de- 
posit of  violence  and  crime.  And  almost  im- 
mediately after  the  expulsion  of  the  Tartars 
there  began  a  third  period  of  foreign  domina- 
tion, that  peaceful  Germanic  invasion  which 
from  the  days  of  Peter  the  Great  has  persist- 
ently warred  against  the  ideals  of  this  peace- 
ful people,  which  became  the  source  of  the  re- 
pressive bureaucratic  system  and  which,  as  an 
active  influence  in  Russian  politics,  is  respon- 
sible for  many  of  those  crimes  that  the  world 
has  ignorantly  laid  at  the  door  of  the  Slavic 
people.  It  is  not  generally  known  that  the  pres- 
ent house  of  Romanoff,  which  has  held  the  scep- 
ter for  three  hundred  years,  is  half  German. 
We  in  America  who  know  something  of  the 
part  played  by  George  III  of  the  House  of  Han- 
over-Brunswick in  the  oppression  of  the  Col- 
onies and  how,  in  opposition  to  the  idealists  of 
England,  he  fought  this  conflict  to  the  bitter 
end,  will  understand  something  of  what  two 
hundred  years  of  Germanization  has  meant  to 
the  Russian  people. 

76 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  RUSSIANS 

For  a  long  period  when  the  great  mass  of  the 
peasantry  were  serfs  upon  the  estates  of  the 
Russian  nobility,  the  task-masters  upon  these 
estates  were  as  a  rule  Germans  who  had  been 
imported  to  wring  a  larger  return  from  the  la- 
bor of  this  unfortunate  people.  And  the  record 
which  they  left  in  the  land  accounts  in  a  very 
large  measure  for  the  enmity  between  the  Slav 
and  the  German  which  is  finding  vent  in  the 
present  war.  And  in  the  higher  offices  of  the 
ministry,  too,  it  has  been  the  hand  of  the  Ger- 
man, especially  the  German  of  the  Russian  Bal- 
tic provinces,  that  has  too  often  set  the  Russian 
Government  in  opposition  to  the  Russian  peo- 
ple. Count  Witte,  for  example,  the  famous 
financial  minister,  who  has  probably  had  a 
greater  influence  in  shaping  the  policy  of  the 
Russian  Government  than  any  other  man  dur- 
ing the  reign  of  Nicholas  II,  is  one  of  these. 
According  to  a  German  writer,  no  man  has  laid 
a  greater  burden  upon  the  Russian  people  in 
order  to  bolster  up  the  false  system  of  Russian 
expansion.  And,  if  we  except  Pobiedonostsef, 
the  fanatical  Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod, 
Count  Witte  has  been  the  ablest  champion  of  the 
reactionary  movement.  He  it  was  who  fought 
the  establishment  of  the  Provincial  Assemblies 

77 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

and  who,  in  a  manifesto  to  the  Czar,  expressed 
his  conviction  that  there  was  no  way  of  ruling 
the  peasant  except  by  the  knout.  And  Plehve, 
the  notorious  Minister  of  the  Interior,  was  an- 
other Baltic  German.  I  do  not  mention  these 
facts  as  a  reflection  upon  the  German  people,  for 
they  too  have  suffered  at  the  hands  of  these 
same  oppressors  in  the  Fatherland,  but  simply 
to  show  that  neither  upon  her  borders  nor 
within  her  interior  can  all  the  inhumanity  of 
Russia  be  fairly  charged  to  the  Russian  peo- 
ple. In  speaking  of  the  Russian  character  as 
it  shines  through  the  enforced  service  of  the 
Russian  soldier,  von  der  Briiggen,  the  eminent 
historian,  who  certainly  cannot  be  charged  with 
prejudice  in  their  favor,  makes  it  all  too  plain 
that  even  in  the  brutal  business  of  conquest  the 
Russian  does  not  forget,  in  his  contact  with  for- 
eign peoples,  that  kindly  brotherhood  which 
marks  him  in  his  association  with  his  kindred. 
"Wherever  the  Russian  finds  a  native  popula- 
tion in  a  low  state  of  civilization,  he  knows  how 
to  settle  down  with  it  without  driving  it  out  or 
crushing  it;  he  is  hailed  by  the  natives  as  the 
bringer  of  order,  as  a  civilizing  power,  and  does 
not  awaken  the  embittered  feeling  of  dependence 
so  long  as  the  Government  does  not  conjure  up 

78 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  RUSSIANS 

national  or  religious  strife."    The  italics  are 
mine. 

That  this  whole  vicious  system  of  Russian 
outrage  is  a  thing  entirely  separate  from  the 
Slavic  people  and  absolutely  contrary  to  their 
nature  becomes  even  clearer  when  we  remem- 
ber that  of  all  the  idealists  and  friends  of  free- 
dom who  have  assailed  this  system  not  one  of 
them  compares  in  passionate  utterance  to  Rus- 
sia's own  prophet,  Tolstoy.  Here  is  the  living 
voice  of  the  Russian  people,  as  Lincoln  is  the 
living  voice  of  the  American  people.  Tolstoy 
is  the  glorified  Russian  peasant  uttering  his 
heart  to  the  world  from  the  cross  of  the  ages. 
From  this  man  alone,  in  modern  times,  has  gone 
out  the  living  conviction  that  peace  and  brother- 
hood are  realities  destined  sooner  or  later  to 
conquer  the  world.  From  this  heart  of  the 
Russian  people  we  see,  like  a  saving  spirit  in 
the  midst  of  blood  and  death,  spreading  out 
over  the  world,  that  wide  circle  of  democracy 
beyond  which  you  cannot  go. 


79 


LAND  AND  WAR 


IV 

LAND  AND   WAB 

AS  far  up  toward  its  source  as  we  can  fol- 
low the  stream  of  civilization,  we  find  the 
land  problem  already  pared  to  the  quick.  In 
the  valley  of  the  Nile,  among  the  cities  of 
Greece,  in  Borne,  both  republican  and  imperial, 
and  on  down  through  the  welter  of  the  Dark 
Ages,  even  to  the  present  day,  this  question  of 
food  sources  for  the  individual  and  the  nation 
is  the  one  question  that  has  successfully  defied 
permanent  solution.  Slavery,  that  trailed  man 
for  ages,  we  have  left  behind  us.  Eeligious 
wars  will  probably  never  again  redden  the 
planet.  The  power  of  the  rulers  is  gradually 
being  circumscribed  by  constitutions  so  that  in 
general  from  political  oppression  the  individual 
is  measurably  secure.  For  all  these  we  have 
either  found  or  are  in  the  way  of  finding  so- 
lutions. But  in  the  matter  of  the  land  prob- 
lem, lying  as  it  does  at  the  very  foundation  of 
life,  we  are  still  in  the  maze,  and  our  progress 
toward  a  solution  is  annoyingly  slow. 

83 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

If  we  consider  the  wars  of  the  world,  we  shall 
find  them  falling  into  one  of  two  classes;  wars 
for  personal  ambition  and  wars  of  human  need. 
And  of  both  classes  by  far  the  larger  per  cent, 
has  been  over  land :  conquerors  extending  their 
dominions,  or  a  people  expropriated  for  one 
reason  or  another  seeking  homes  in  some  other 
region  or,  within  their  own  state,  rising  against 
the  upper  classes  to  recover  their  ancestral  pos- 
sessions. Upon  the  first  of  these  we  need  not 
particularly  dwell,  for  history  is  full  of  them, 
and  every  schoolboy  has  at  his  tongue 's  end  the 
names  of  their  leaders.  And  even  where  no 
conspicuous  leader  emerged,  these  wars  of  con- 
quest are  in  a  class  by  themselves  and  easily 
distinguished  from  the  others.  By  the  unani- 
mous opinion  of  mankind,  this  class  of  wars 
has  been  branded  as  infamous.  But  for  those 
conflicts  which  have  arisen  from  a  people's  need 
of  land,  there  has  always  been  a  universal  sym- 
pathy and  in  many  cases  an  outspoken  admira- 
tion. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  and  yet  one  which  not 
infrequently  confronts  us  in  history,  that  the 
land  holdings  of  a  people  individually  are  gen- 
erally in  inverse  ratio  to  the  land  holdings  of 
their  state ;  or  in  other  words,  that  as  the  state 

84 


LAND  AND  WAR 

begins  to  win  the  world  the  people  of  that  state 
begin  to  lose  their  own  farms.  This  it  would 
seem  is  the  Nemesis  that  follows  the  armies  of 
conquerors,  that  a  people  which  aids  and  abets 
its  state  in  a  lawless  assault  upon  the  territory 
of  a  foreign  people  will  themselves  be  obliged 
eventually  to  drain  the  same  bitter  cup  in  their 
own  individual  lives.  He  who  helps  steal  a 
province  shall  lose  his  own  farm.  How  comes  it 
we  have  never  perceived  the  truth  of  this,  when 
it  is  written  out  in  capitals  on  the  pages  of  his- 
tory? Unquestionably  because  we  read  history 
for  cultural,  never  for  ethical,  purposes.  Or 
shall  we  say  that  those  who  can  afford  the  lei- 
sure for  reading  history  are  never  the  ones  who 
bear  the  burden  of  conquest  but  are  rather  di- 
rectly or  indirectly  the  beneficiaries  of  the  rob- 
bery? Whatever  the  reason  may  be,  the  fact 
remains  that  so  far  as  our  handling  of  the  land 
problem  is  concerned,  it  is  as  though  there  were 
no  such  things  as  the  lessons  of  history.  We 
go  round  and  round  on  the  same  old  wheel  that 
is  worn  smooth  by  the  feet  of  generations  dead 
and  gone.  In  other  things  we  progress,  be- 
cause we  build  upon  the  experience  of  the  past. 
In  mechanics,  in  agriculture,  in  sanitation,  in 
almost  everything  that  one  can  mention,  we 

85 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

carry  along  with  us  the  wisdom  of  the  past. 
But  in  this  most  vital  of  all  questions,  the  land 
problem,  our  yesterdays  are  as  nothing.  We 
go  off  hither  and  thither  after  the  thousand  and 
one  interests  of  life  and  again  and  again  come 
back  utterly  naked  to  this  oldest  of  all  prob- 
lems. Is  this  an  extravagant  statement? 

Let  us  open  the  great  book  of  history  and, 
choosing  some  nation  of  the  long  ago,  tear  out 
those  pages  which  deal  with  the  relation  of  its 
people  to  their  land,  and  lay  them  side  by  side 
with  similar  pages  just  written.  And  in  order 
that  the  comparison  may  be  a  fair  one  and  throw 
light  upon  as  many  phases  as  possible  of  this 
problem,  let  us  take  in  each  case  a  nation  with 
wide  land  holdings,  empires  if  we  can  find  them, 
whose  history  has  been  so  thoroughly  explored 
as  to  leave  no  doubt  that  it  is  facts  we  are  deal- 
ing with.  If  among  the  nations  we  can  find  two 
of  this  sort,  one  ancient  and  one  modern,  and  es- 
pecially if  they  are  alike  in  this  also,  that  in 
both  the  land  problem  became  acute,  we  should 
be  able  to  make  a  comparison  which  would  help 
us  in  determining  how  much  progress,  if  any, 
we  have  made  in  this  respect,  and  also  clear  up 
certain  matters  of  fundamental  importance  in- 
volved in  the  present  war. 

86 


LAND  AND  WAR 

It  is  evident  that  if  we  are  to  meet  all  the 
ahove  requirements  we  shall  be  obliged  to  take 
from  the  past  Rome  and  from  the  present 
Britain.  Here  we  have  two  empires  with  ter- 
ritories reaching  in  each  case  to  the  limits  of 
the  known  world,  whose  records  are  clear,  and 
in  both  of  which  the  land  problem  early  became 
and  for  centuries  remained  a  most  irritating 
one. 

It  was  the  policy  of  Eome  in  her  acquisition 
of  foreign  territory  to  take  from  a  conquered 
people  a  portion,  usually  a  third,  of  their  land, 
and  this  thereafter  was  considered  the  peculiar 
property  of  the  Eoman  state.  Upon  this  public 
land,  with  the  exception  of  those  parts  of  it 
that  were  set  aside  for  the  veterans  of  the  Eo- 
man army,  Eoman  citizens  were  allowed  to  set- 
tle on  condition  that  a  portion  of  the  product 
of  the  land  should  be  turned  over  to  the  state. 
The  part  still  unsettled  became  "commons," 
upon  which  Eomans  of  all  classes  could  turn 
their  stock.  Eventually  these  open  tracts  were 
claimed  by  the  wealthy  classes  who,  despite  op- 
position, succeeded  in  forcing  from  the  state 
a  recognition  of  their  claim.  Owing  to  this 
stealthy  confiscation  of  the  public  lands,  large 
numbers  of  the  people  were  deprived  of  their 

87 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

livelihood,  and,  in  the  hope  of  improving  their 
condition,  sought  refuge  in  the  capital.  This 
was  the  beginning  of  that  turbulent  population 
for  whose  poverty  and  loss  of  independence,  ever 
rising  into  a  menace,  the  upper  classes  of  Rome 
felt  compelled  to  make  a  quieting  restitution  in 
tremendous  charities  of  grain,  the  distribution 
of  which  only  aggravated  the  evil  by  attracting 
to  Rome  the  outcasts  of  the  world.  Later,  a 
similar  encroachment  was  begun  by  the  same 
wealthy  class  upon  that  other  portion  of  the 
conquered  land  which  had  been  given  to  the 
poorer  Romans.  More  money  could  be  made 
and  with  less  danger  of  an  uprising  of  tenants 
by  converting  farms  into  pasture  for  sheep  and 
cattle.  In  this  way  finally,  either  by  open  rob- 
bery or  by  forced  sale,  the  Roman  people  were 
dispossessed  of  their  small  holdings  and  turned 
adrift  to  wander  and  to  take  at  last  the  wide 
road  to  Rome. 

Meanwhile,  the  Roman  armies  with  recruits 
eternally  drawn  from  this  vagrant  population 
were  conquering  the  world.  By  a  people  that 
were  steadily  losing  their  acres,  province  after 
province  was  being  added  to  the  already  vast 
possessions  of  the  state.  By  a  species  of  jug- 
glery which  has  been  practised  over  and  over 


LAND  AND  WAR 

since  the  beginning  of  the  world,  sons  of  fathers 
who  had  lost  their  little  farms  were  tricked  into 
taking  up  the  sword  to  win  kingdoms  for  the 
robbers.  And  every  attempt  to  expose  this 
monstrous  crime  against  the  freedom  and  life 
of  a  great  people  was  ruthlessly  smothered. 
We  shall  probably  never  know  how  many  ar- 
dent champions  of  a  better  order  of  things  lost 
their  lives  in  this  unequal  contest.  Between 
Spurius  Cassius,  the  "first  social  reformer  of 
Borne'*  and  also  the  first  martyr  to  this  cause 
of  simple  justice,  and  Gaius  Gracchus,  the  first 
to  make  any  headway  and  whose  blood  also 
stained  the  streets  of  Kome,  lie  more  than  three 
hundred  and  fifty  years  of  almost  futile  strug- 
gle. 

If  England  had  never  heard  of  Rome,  if  her 
statesmen  had  never  read  of  the  transforma- 
tion of  that  sturdy,  independent,  agricultural 
people  into  an  idle,  broken-spirited  city  mob, 
fed  and  amused  by  the  Caesars,  we  should  not 
be  surprised  at  what  has  happened  in  the  Island 
Kingdom.  I  do  not  know  that  attention  has 
ever  been  called  to  the  similarity  in  social  de- 
velopment between  England  and  Eome.  We 
have  probably  been  so  disarmed  by  the  marked 
difference  between  them  in  their  political  evolu- 

89 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

tion,  the  one  entering  her  civilized  period  as  a 
republic  and  thence  converging  toward  mon- 
archy, the  other  moving  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion, that  we  have  failed  to  note  the  parallel 
currents  of  their  social  development.  But  no 
one  can  read  the  history  of  the  rise  of  the  land- 
lords in  England  and  not  perceive  at  once  the 
appalling  resemblance  between  the  republic  of 
yesterday  and  monarchy  of  to-day. 

Turn  back  to  the  period  of  the  early  Tudors 
and  you  will  find  pages  which  might  have  been 
torn  bodily  from  the  history  of  early  Rome. 
Here  under  English  names  the  plebeians  and 
patricians  are  again  at  war.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
is  going  round  the  old  wheel  of  the  Latin.  And 
the  cause  of  the  struggle  is  identical  with  that 
which  tore  Rome.  It  has  become  more  profita- 
ble to  raise  sheep  than  to  turn  over  the  sod, 
and  steadily  before  the  advance  of  sheep  the 
people  disappear.  It  is  really  a  question,  as 
we  come  down  through  the  ages,  whether  men 
have  preyed  more  upon  the  animal  kingdom 
or  the  animal  kingdom  more  upon  man.  If  man 
has  driven  the  wild  animal  farther  and  farther 
into  the  depths  of  the  wilderness,  the  domesti- 
cated animal,  in  Britain  certainly,  has  driven 
man  farther  and  farther  from  the  health  of 

90 


LAND  AND  WAR 

the  open  fields  into  the  slums  of  the  cities.  Not 
only  are  the  great  tracts  of  the  lords  of  the 
manor  converted  into  pastures,  but  the  commons 
are  enclosed.  And  after  the  commons,  the 
small  farms.  The  little  hedge  of  right  ceases 
any  longer  to  protect  the  small  acres.  By  this 
relentless  broom  of  the  landlord  even  the  cot- 
tages are  swept  away.  In  the  place  of  villages 
are  stretches  of  the  returned  grass,  with  here 
and  there  a  lonely  spire  and  thatched  roofs  fallen 
into  ruin.  That  devastation  which  we  think  of 
as  following  only  in  the  wake  of  armies  was 
here  diffused  through  centuries.  The  yeomen 
of  England,  whose  fathers  had  fallen  in  many  a 
battle  for  the  glory  of  England,  had  entered 
upon  the  same  path  toward  city  pauperism  as 
that  which  seventeen  hundred  years  before  the 
Romans  had  taken  to  misery  and  oblivion.  In 
order  that  flocks  might  have  pasture,  and  let 
us  add,  that  foxes  and  pheasants  might  thrive, 
a  diversion  for  royal  hunters  from  the  boredom 
of  idleness,  thousands  of  people  were  set  adrift. 
Men,  women,  and  children  were  turned  out  that 
primal  nature  might  again  have  sway.  It  had 
become  more  important  in  the  eyes  of  England 
to  raise  an  abundance  of  wool  than  to  preserve 
a  sturdy  race  of  men. 

91 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  English  people  that, 
like  the  Romans  before  them,  they  resisted  these 
attempts  to  dispossess  them,  at  first  by  laws 
which  proved  of  no  avail  and  later  by  that  last 
resort  of  free  men,  their  good  right  arm;  but 
unfortunately,  as  I  have  pointed  out  elsewhere, 
with  none  of  that  unconquerable  spirit  that 
through  the  centuries  has  won  for  them  a  far 
larger  measure  of  political  freedom.  As  far 
back  as  the  early  Tudors,  so  inhuman  were  the 
outrages  of  the  landlords  that  in  several  parts 
of  England  there  were  uprisings  which  before 
they  were  finally  put  down  cost  the  lives  of  thou- 
sands. In  Somerset,  the  Protector,  who  sympa- 
thized with  the  people  and  for  a  time  tried  to 
aid  them  and  who  because  of  this  opposition  to 
the  patricians  of  England  was  later  tried  for 
treason  and  executed,  we  have  a  worthy  suc- 
cessor of  Spurius  Cassius,  who  for  advocating 
the  same  cause  lost  his  life  in  early  Rome. 

And  from  the  days  of  Somerset  down  all  the 
intervening  years  this  expropriation  has  gone 
steadily  on,  often  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Indeed, 
if  it  had  been  a  matter  of  deliberate  policy,  if 
the  small  landowners  had  been  an  alien  race  and 
England  had  determined  from  the  first  to  weed 

92 


LAND  AND  WAR 

them  out,  she  could  not  have  gone  about  it  more 
effectively  than  she  has  done.  It  is  open  to 
serious  question  if  the  people  of  England  would 
not  to-day  be  better  off  if  the  island  had  been 
conquered  by  Napoleon.  For,  compared  to  the 
French  people  who  entered  the  race  for  liberty 
far  behind  the  people  of  England,  it  must  be 
confessed  that  the  French  are  infinitely  better 
off.  Indeed,  there  is  not  a  people  in  Europe 
whose  livelihood  is  so  precarious  as  the  Saxon 
of  England.  Possessed  of  one-fifth  of  the  hab- 
itable globe,  they  are  either  tenants  upon  the 
confiscated  freeholds  of  their  ancestors  or  in 
crowded  cities  dependent  for  their  daily  bread 
upon  the  slender  thread  of  foreign  trade.  Here 
are  the  records  of  what  the  Roman  policy  of  the 
Island  Kingdom  had  accomplished  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  latter  half  of  the  Victorian  era, 
records  which  without  the  least  exaggeration  we 
may  call  the  records  of  a  crime.  But  because 
it  was  accomplished  by  England  instead  of  Rus- 
sia, because  it  has  blighted  the  lives  of  a  whole 
people  instead  of  a  few  rubber  gatherers  in  the 
Belgian  Congo,  we  have  heard  little  of  it.  I 
quote  from  a  member  of  the  English  Parliament 
who  in  turn  quotes  from  government  statis- 
tics. 

93 


THE  WOELD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

"The  Return  (1872)  shows  that  852,000  land- 
owners only  possess  on  an  average  a  little  more 
than  one-fifth  of  an  acre,  while  the  Duke  of  Suth- 
erland possessed  seven  times  as  much  as  their 
entire  holdings.  Dividing  the  Return  into  two 
great  classes,  1,105,000  landlords  hold  about 
5,000,000  acres,  while  67,978  landlords  hold  67,- 
000,000  acres.  From  the  same  Return  we 
gather  that  twenty-eight  dukes  hold  estates  to 
the  amount  of  nearly  4,000,000  acres,  thirty- 
three  marquises  1,500,000  acres,  one  hundred 
and  ninety-four  earls  5,862,000  acres,  and  two 
hundred  and  seventy  viscounts  and  barons 
3,785,000  acres.  The  Return  shows  that  2,250 
persons  owned  in  that  day  nearly  half  the  en- 
closed land  of  England  and  Wales.  Nine-tenths 
of  Scotland  was  owned  by  1,700,  and  two-thirds 
of  Ireland  by  1,942  persons. ' ' 

Yet  in  face  of  these  facts,  facts  written,  if 
ever  facts  were  written,  in  a  people's  blood,  the 
devourer  had  continued  his  advance  unchecked. 
Within  thirty  years  immediately  following  the 
above-shown  condition,  familiar  all  the  while 
to  the  law  makers  of  England,  so  great  was  the 
decline  in  agriculture  during  this  period,  accord- 
ing to  a  recent  writer  in  the  Fortnightly  Review, 
that  "the  crops  produced  by  our  farmers  have 

94 


LAND  AND  WAR 

so  seriously  decreased  that  of  the  capital  in- 
vested in  British  agriculture  no  less  than  £1,000,- 
000,000  has  been  lost.  > '  More  than  $165,000,000 
of  capital  withdrawn  every  year  from  farming, 
while  every  year  because  of  intolerable  condi- 
tions more  than  200,000  people  leave  England  to 
seek  homes  elsewhere !  In  not  one  nation  of  con- 
tinental Europe  does  the  proportion  of  the  "oc- 
cupied population"  engaged  in  agriculture 
fall  below  30  per  cent.,  whereas  in  Great 
Britain  the  per  cent,  is  9.2.  Think  of  half  of 
Great  Britain,  an  island  of  unsurpassed  fer- 
tility and  climate,  lying  in  grass  while  fifty 
per  cent,  of  the  children  of  the  cities  and  larger 
towns  in  England  are  underfed.  In  a  speech 
delivered  not  long  ago,  Winston  Churchill 
summed  it  all  up  in  one  terrible  phrase.  ' '  The 
fortunate  people  of  Britain  are  more  happy  than 
any  other  equally  numerous  class  have  been 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  I  believe  the  left- 
out  millions  are  more  miserable.  Our  van- 
guard enjoys  the  delights  of  the  ages.  Our  rear 
guard  straggles  out  into  conditions  that  are 
crueler  than  barbarism."  The  statement  is  a 
conservative  one.  Compared  to  actual  living 
conditions  in  France  under  the  Bourbons  from 
which  that  mighty  people  rose  in  successful  re- 

95 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

volt,  conditions  in  England  under  George  V 
are  incontestably  worse.  And  when  we  remem- 
ber what,  during  the  last  two  hundred  years, 
England's  far-flung  battle  line  has  been  doing, 
how  thousands  upon  thousands  of  Englishmen 
have  bought  colonies  for  Britain  at  the  price  of 
their  own  homes,  the  analogy  of  the  fate  of  the 
Saxon  to  the  fate  of  the  Roman  becomes  tragi- 
cally clear.  In  England,  as  in  Rome,  the  army 
of  sheep  has  been  more  terrible  than  an  army 
with  banners.  Little  wonder  that  the  ravages 
of  drunkenness  in  the  Island  Kingdom  are 
"more  terrible  than  war."  There  comes  a  time 
in  the  history  of  nations  as  of  individuals 
when  the  supreme  blessing  is  the  ability  to  for- 
get. 

If  England,  traveling  these  long  centuries  the 
road  of  Rome,  has  thus  far  escaped  the  utter 
decay  which  overtook  her  imperial  sister,  her 
good  fortune  is  due  not  to  the  fact  that  the  greed 
of  her  landlords  has  been  less  or  that  the  pro- 
tection given  by  the  government  to  the  people 
has  been  more  than  in  ancient  Rome,  but  solely 
to  her  superior  commercial  development.  That 
wool  for  which  she  early  sacrificed  her  people 
became  the  foundation  of  a  foreign  trade  that 
has  come  as  a  saving  hand  between  the  English 

96 


LAND  AND  WAR 

people  and  that  dire  fate  which  crept  upon  their 
brothers  in  the  South.  If  England  has  not 
felt  obliged  to  distribute  her  charities  quite  so 
ostentatiously  but  has  resorted  to  the  more 
modern  palliatives  of  old-age  pensions,  sick  ben- 
efits and  the  like ;  if  she  has  not  been  driven  to 
supplying  circuses  to  divert  the  bitter  broodings 
of  a  menacing  population,  it  is  certainly  not  due 
to  her  having  solved  any  better  than  Eome  this 
eternal  problem  of  land.  Looms,  it  is  true, 
afford  a  more  solid  foundation  for  a  people's 
well-being  than  do  circuses,  but  always  there  is 
danger  that  these  looms  may  stop.  This  is  the 
haunting  thought,  the  pursuing  ghost  that 
everywhere  gives  such  a  somber  aspect  to  the 
separation  of  a  people  from  their  land.  Once 
let  England's  foreign  trade  be  menaced,  as  it 
has  already  been  menaced,  and  the  Island  King- 
dom faces  the  dilemma,  Circuses  or  Land. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  it  is  not  particularly 
surprising  that  England  has  at  last  awakened  to 
the  realization  that  during  all  these  centuries 
of  accumulating  disaster  there  was  such  a  thing 
as  history  to  guide  her,  and  that  now  with  the 
lions  of  the  arena  on  the  one  hand  and  her  great 
landlords  on  the  other  she  turns  weakly  toward 
those  vast  enclosed  tracts,  barren  of  population, 

97 


that  were  once  the  homes  of  a  thrifty  and  con- 
tented people. 

It  is  fortunate  for  England  that  she  has  pro- 
duced at  this  crucial  period  a  man  of  the  vision 
and  courage  of  Lloyd-George.  If  it  is  not  too 
late,  if  this  long  dependence  has  not  already 
sapped  the  manhood  of  the  people,  something 
may  yet  be  done.  But  when  we  remember  that 
the  disease  has  been  the  cause  of  wide  and  un- 
relieved distress  for  more  than  two  hundred 
years,  and  when  we  see  that  vast  masses  of  this 
unfortunate  people  have  already  forgotten  that 
the  land  is  really  theirs  and  are  either  uncon- 
cerned or  ready  to  defend  the  title  of  the  pres- 
ent owners,  the  long  hard  task  confronting  Eng- 
land becomes  clear. 

And  right  here  I  would  call  attention — es- 
pecially the  attention  of  England — to  an  even 
greater  dilemma  than  that  which  she  faces  at 
home,  one  indeed  of  which  the  condition  we  have 
just  been  describing  is  one  horn  and  of  which 
the  other  horn  has  seriously  to  do  with  the  pres- 
ent war. 

While  England  has  been  developing  exten- 
sively, Germany  has  been  developing  inten- 
sively; while  England  has  been  winning  prov- 
inces, Germany  has  been  fertilizing  her  acres; 

98 


LAND  AND  WAR 

while  England's  drum-beat  has  been  going 
round  the  world  and  her  traders  have  been  fol- 
lowing in  its  wake,  the  German  hive  has  been 
humming  with  the  labor  of  an  increasing  and 
well-cared-for  population.  It  is  as  though  im- 
perial Eome  had  divided  and  one-half  of  her, 
her  lust  of  conquest,  had  found  refuge  in  Eng- 
land, and  the  other  half,  her  aptitude  for  arms 
and  organization,  had  established  itself  in  Ger- 
many. Though  we  have  not  grasped  their  full 
meaning,  though  we  have  failed  even  to  attend 
them,  side  by  side  for  the  instruction  of  the 
world  two  tremendous  social  experiments  have 
been  going  on.  And  now  having  reached  their 
culmination,  these  two  systems,  the  extensive 
and  the  intensive,  provinces  and  acres,  world 
dominion  and  individual  efficiency,  confront  one 
another  across  the  Straits  of  Dover. 

No  one  can  read  the  history  of  these  two 
countries  and  not  be  filled  with  amazement  that 
two  peoples  of  the  same  stock  should  have  pur- 
sued paths  so  divergent.  From  the  very  begin- 
ning it  would  seem  that  England  was  destined 
to  play  the  role  of  the  landlord  both  at  home  and 
abroad.  Virtually  all  her  problems,  both  do- 
mestic and  foreign,  have  been  such  as,  on  a 
small  scale,  her  peers  have  had  to  meet  in  the 

99 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

management  of  their  estates,  to  draw  from  their 
tenants  for  the  upkeep  of  the  castle  the  largest 
possible  revenue  consistent  with  similar  con- 
siderations for  the  future.  Germany,  on  the 
other  hand,  though  she  too  has  had  her  prob- 
lems, has  never  allowed  herself  to  be  haunted 
by  the  specter  of  a  population  dispossessed  by 
landlords.  Never  in  Germany  has  the  primal 
grass  encroached  upon  the  cultivated  field,  never 
have  men  fled  before  sheep.  If  her  people 
have  crowded  into  cities,  it  has  at  least  not  been 
to  escape  the  clutch  of  the  landlord.  If  they 
have  gone  into  factories,  it  has  been  of  their  own 
free  will  and  with  a  realization  doubtless  that 
in  this  field  lay  greater  opportunities  for  the 
exercise  of  their  peculiar  genius  for  organiza- 
tion. 

Two  things  have  diverted  attention  from  the 
land  question  in  Germany — her  stupendous  mili- 
tary system  and  the  amazing  expansion  of  her 
foreign  trade.  But  it  is  evident  that  we  can- 
not fairly  judge  a  state  unless  we  know  some- 
thing of  the  relation  of  its  people  to  their  land. 
For  after  all,  free  institutions  depend  for  per- 
manency upon  this  relation.  And  where  the 
relation  is  one  of  injustice  it  is  to  no  purpose 
that  a  glittering  superstructure  is  erected. 

100 


LAND  AND  WAR 

There  is  no  power,  either  of  parliaments  or  of 
armies,  that  can  save  such  a  nation  from  even- 
tual decay  or  from  an  ultimate  revolution  that 
will  steadily  gather  strength  and  motion  or  sub- 
side and  intermittently  break  out,  until  this 
foundation  is  put  in  order.  It  is  a  pity  that  a 
knowledge  of  what  Germany  has  done  in  the 
matter  of  land  ownership  and  cultivation  has 
not  been  more  generally  spread  abroad.  Her 
record  in  this  respect,  like  that  which  she  has 
made  in  city  management,  is  something  for 
which  humanity  would  show  much  more  sym- 
pathy and  admiration  than  it  has  shown  for  her 
military  or  even  for  her  cultural  development. 
And,  moreover,  the  world  is  in  need  of  every 
stray  gleam  of  light  upon  this  subject. 

At  the  very  outset  of  our  investigation  we  are 
met  by  a  condition  which,  compared  to  the  wide 
misery  beyond  the  North  Sea,  goes  far  toward 
explaining  the  more  evenly  distributed  pros- 
perity of  the  German  people  and  which,  like  a 
thick  layer  of  granite,  upholds  the  colossal 
structure  of  German  efficiency  that  both  in  peace 
and  in  war  has  been  the  astonishment  of  the 
world. 

In  England  less  than  thirteen  per  cent,  of  the 
land  is  cultivated  by  its  owners  and  the  other 

101 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

eighty-seven  per  cent,  by  tenants,  whereas  in 
Germany  just  the  reverse  is  true;  the  thirteen 
per  cent,  are  tenants  and  the  eighty-seven  per 
cent,  are  owners.  Again,  when  we  compare  the 
agricultural  output  of  the  two  countries  the  dif- 
ference is  even  more  astounding.  With  a  cul- 
tivated area  approximately  one-third  larger 
than  that  of  the  United  Kingdom,  the  product 
of  the  German  farms  is  four  times  as  great  as 
those  of  the  United  Kingdom.  And  even  these 
facts,  that  should  have  rung  like  a  warning  bell 
over  England  and  turned  her  face  not  in  rivalry 
toward  her  thrifty  neighbor  but  toward  her  own 
depopulated  acres — even  these  facts  do  not  tell 
the  full  story  of  the  relative  rise  and  fall  of 
these  two  great  peoples.  During  the  thirty 
years  ending  1911  the  grass  lands  of  England  in- 
creased by  3,000,000  acres  and  the  sheep  by 
2,000,000,  whereas  in  Germany  during  the  same 
period  the  grass  lands  fell  off  by  7,000,000  acres, 
and  the  sheep  by  14,000,000 !  While  to  keep  up 
her  foreign  trade,  the  nurse  of  her  exhausted 
cities,  England  has  felt  compelled  to  sacrifice 
her  people  to  sheep,  Germany  has  sacrificed  her 
sheep  for  the  good  of  her  people  and  has  found 
other  ways  of  securing  a  foreign  trade  that  is 
fast  overtaking  that  of  England. 

102 


LAND  AND  WAR 

But  within  the  past  few  years  a  new  age  Has 
dawned  for  Germany,  as  sooner  or  later  it  must 
dawn  for  every  nation.  Eventually,  after 
prodigal  wandering,  humanity  must  again  face 
the  problem  of  the  soil.  And  no  matter  how 
economically  the  ancestral  territory  may  have 
been  used,  to  an  expanding  race  sooner  or  later 
the  ancient  question  will  return.  So  far  as 
Germany  is  concerned,  that  day  has  already  ar- 
rived. With  an  area  one-fifth  less  than  Texas 
and  with  a  population  over  two-thirds  that  of 
the  whole  United  States,  Germany  finds  herself 
facing  identically  the  same  problem  that  Eng- 
land is  facing,  the  problem  of  land.  But  for 
Germany,  unfortunately,  it  has  proved  a  gor- 
dian  knot,  the  untying  of  which  has  brought  her 
into  conflict  with  her  neighbors,  whereas  for 
England  the  problem  is  altogether  a  domestic 
one.  Let  us  look  into  this  a  little  more  closely, 
for  here  it  is  we  shall  find  that  terrible  dilemma 
between  the  horns  of  which  at  last,  after  cen- 
turies of  evasion,  England  is  caught. 

By  what  blunder  of  the  Fates  has  it  come 
about  that  the  German  people  should  wake  up 
to  the  fact  that  they  need  land  just  when  the 
English  people  were  waking  up  to  a  similar 
need?  Where  was  England's  perpetual  good 

103 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

fortune  that  this  should  have  been  allowed? 
Why  could  not  the  one  or  the  other  have  been 
postponed?  For  consider  the  irony  of  the 
situation,  the  difficulty  in  which  England  now 
finds  herself. 

There  is  not  one  argument  which  the  Liberal 
Party  has  used  against  the  landlords  of  Eng- 
land— and  they  are  many  and  weighty — that 
Germany  cannot  use  with  equal  justice  against 
England  herself.  For  who  that  is  acquainted 
with  the  Island  Kingdom  and  with  the  empire 
over  which  her  scepter  is  potent  does  not  know 
that  England  sustains  the  same  relation  to  the 
crowded  peoples  of  the  world  as  do  her  own 
landlords  to  the  crowded  peoples  of  England. 
Loosen  for  a  moment  the  imagination  and  let 
it  lift  up  and  flatten  out  the  surface  of  the  globe. 
Now  magically  diminish  it  and  lay  it  upon  the  Is- 
land Kingdom,  distributing  its  population  ac- 
cording to  the  cities.  Then  look  at  it  from  above. 
London  is  China,  Glasgow  is  India,  Liverpool 
is  Germany,  etc.  And  the  wide  grass  lands 
of  the  island  are  Canada,  Australia,  and  South 
Africa.  If  the  Liberal  Party,  which  at  present 
is  the  government  of  England,  is  right  in  its  de- 
mand that  the  wide  acres  of  the  landlords  in 
England  be  returned  to  the  people,  by  what  logic 

104 


LAND  AND  WAR 

has  this  same  party  arrived  at  the  conclusion 
that  the  crowded  peoples  of  the  world  have  no 
claim  upon  the  unoccupied  provinces  of  Great 
Britain?  Is  it  because  the  title  which  England 
holds  to  her  provinces  is  sounder  than  that  held 
by  the  English  landlords  to  their  estates?  It 
needs  but  the  slightest  acquaintance  with  the 
manner  in  which  these  provinces  were  acquired 
to  correct  this  impression.  How  few  has  she 
ever  paid  for,  how  many  has  she,  directly  or 
indirectly,  acquired  by  the  sword ! 

By  the  law  of  the  talent,  he  that  uses  one 
well  shall  receive  two.  Has  the  Island  King- 
dom used  her  seventy  million  ancestral  acres 
better  than  Germany  her  one  hundred  and 
thirty-five  million  that  the  former  is  entitled  to 
more  than  ten  times  the  amount  of  the  earth's 
surface  enjoyed  by  the  latter?  Why,  for  in- 
stance, should  the  German,  if  he  wishes  to  leave 
his  native  land  and  take  up  his  home  in  foreign 
parts,  be  obliged  to  settle  in  a  limited  area  of 
Africa  or  in  some  of  the  other  infinitesimal  Ger- 
man possessions,  uncongenial  they  may  be,  and 
offering  little  opportunity  for  the  development 
of  his  talent,  while  the  Englishman,  setting  forth 
on  a  similar  mission,  has  every  continent  and 
every  climate  to  choose  from? 

105 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

It  may  be  said  that  the  British  colonies  are 
open  to  the  German  immigrant  as  they  are  open 
to  the  immigrants  of  other  nations,  even  to  those 
from  England  herself.  While  this  is  true,  while 
there  are  no  barriers  in  the  way  of  a  German 's 
making  his  home  in  any  of  the  innumerable  Brit- 
ish possessions,  there  is  a  condition  to  such  set- 
tlement which,  to  a  proud  people,  is  the  greatest 
barrier  in  the  world.  Fortunately  or  unfor- 
tunately, there  is  still  such  a  thing  as  patriot- 
ism. To  say  to  the  German,  forced  out  of  his 
own  country  by  its  growing  population,  that 
there  is  one-fifth  of  the  globe  with  vast  unsettled 
tracts  upon  no  acre  of  which  he  can  make  his 
home  and  take  part  in  the  government  of  the 
country  without  becoming  a  British  subject,  is 
essentially  a  "no-permit."  Undoubtedly  there 
are  regions,  and  wide  regions,  that  in  the  nature 
of  things  should  be  under  one  sovereignty,  but 
it  is  evident  that  there  should  be  some  limit  to 
this.  The  claim  must  rest  upon  something  more 
solid  than  mere  conquest — upon  racial  or  geo- 
graphical unity.  To  allow  a  nation  to  seize  and 
hold  fast  by  the  sword  far-scattered  possessions 
inhabited  by  heterogeneous  peoples  and  to  im- 
pose its  citizenship  upon  every  incomer  who  de- 
sires to  live  the  full  life  of  a  free  man,  to  ex- 

106 


LAND  AND  WAR 

press  himself  in  the  government  as  well  as  in 
the  business  of  the  country,  is  a  temptation  to 
conquest  and  a  hate-breeder  which  humanity 
cannot  afford  to  perpetuate. 

Would  England  herself  in  this  matter  of  land 
be  willing  to  square  her  domestic  policy  with  her 
foreign  policy  I  Would  she  be  willing  to  accept, 
for  instance,  as  a  compromise  of  the  fight  she 
is  waging  to  recover  from  the  peers  her  people 's 
acres,  the  condition  which  she  herself  imposes 
upon  those  who  seek  homes  in  her  foreign  pos- 
sessions, viz.:  that  the  people  who  settle  upon 
these  royal  estates  shall  become  ipso  facto  ten- 
ants upon  the  land,  free  to  plow  and  sow  and 
market  their  products,  yes ;  but  in  the  matter  of 
their  civic  life  no  longer  subjects  of  England, 
owing  allegiance  to  the  government  of  England, 
but  belonging  henceforth  solely  to  these  peers? 
Even  those  nations  whose  sympathy  is  with  the 
Allies  in  the  present  conflict  are  awake  to  the 
moral  dilemma  in  which  England  is  involved 
and  are  wondering  how  when  the  present  war 
is  over  she  will  extricate  herself. 

For  landlordism  no  less  than  militarism  is 
one  of  the  problems  that  must  somehow  be 
solved  by  this  war,  if  the  peace  which  the  world 
is  hoping  will  come  is  to  be  a  permanent  peace. 

107 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

For  the  terrible  sacrifices  which  Europe  is  mak- 
ing to  end  war  would  be  to  no  purpose  were  its 
aim  simply  to  abolish  preparations  for  war  and 
not  also  causes  of  war.  So  long  as  there  is 
one  nation  that,  without  restraint  and  as  the 
mood  seizes  it,  is  allowed  to  confiscate  the  lands 
of  weak  peoples  in  every  part  of  the  earth  and 
to  compel  every  person  who  settles  within  this 
conquered  territory  and  who  wishes  to  partici- 
pate in  the  government  of  his  new  home  to  sever 
his  connection  with  his  own  country  and  become 
a  subject  of  the  conquering  nation,  it  is  as  plain 
as  day  that  the  present  war  will  be  followed  by 
another  and  still  another,  until  landlordism  too 
has  disappeared.  If  the  matter  is  not  settled 
now  and  settled  rightly,  it  will  be  brought 
up  again,  we  may  be  sure,  until  some  measure  of 
justice  shall  have  been  secured.  Any  talk  of 
disarmament  that  does  not  provide  also  for  the 
disarmament  of  the  landlord  is  a  mere  bandying 
of  useless  words.  For,  as  we  have  seen,  land- 
lordism is  the  main  cause  of  militarism.  And 
of  the  two,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  comparative 
condition  of  the  people  of  England  where  land- 
lordism has  had  full  sway,  and  the  people  of 
Germany  among  whom  militarism  has  come  to 
its  most  perfect  flower,  we  are  forced  to  ad- 

108 


LAND  AND  WAR 

mit  that  of  the  two  curses  landlordism  is  the 
more  disastrous. 

If  England,  with  the  help  of  her  powerful 
allies  and  the  sympathy  of  the  neutral  world, 
can  lift  from  the  back  of  the  German  people 
the  burden  of  militarism,  and  if  the  German 
people  can  reciprocate  this  favor  by  lifting  from 
the  back  of  the  English  people  the  burden  of 
landlordism,  grown  to  monstrous  proportions 
through  the  centuries,  a  solid  foundation  of 
friendship  will  have  been  established  between 
the  future  generations  of  the  two  countries,  and 
the  present  war  will  have  gone  far  toward  de- 
serving that  enviable  title,  the  War  to  End  War. 


109 


EMPIEE  OB  FEDERATION 


EMPIRE   OR  FEDERATION 

Eany  one  had  said,  during  those  unsettled 
fears  immediately  following  the  American 
Eevolution  when  the  thirteen  states  that  had 
been  allies  during  the  conflict  were  falling  apart, 
each  jealously  guarding  its  own  separate  iden- 
tity, that  within  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
years  there  would  be,  extending  from  sea  to  sea, 
one  Government  which  would  be  the  arbiter  of 
all  disputes  among  them  and  that  this  Govern- 
ment would  maintain  peace  within  her  vast  bor- 
ders, even  going  so  far  as  to  interfere  in  local 
affairs  when  the  state  refused  or  was  unable  to 
keep  peace,  ninety-nine  men  out  of  a  hundred 
would  probably  have  jeered  at  such  a  prophecy. 
Internationally  we  are  to-day  in  a  situation 
fundamentally  identical  with  that  in  which  our 
states  were  immediately  following  the  Kevolu- 
tion.  And  to-day  as  yesterday,  eyes  are  looking 
into  the  future  to  glimpse  if  possible  what  is  to 
be  the  outcome  of  it  all,  for  it  is  evident  that  this 

113 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

clashing  of  nation  with  nation  cannot  go  on 
forever.  The  business  of  humanity  is  growth 
and  development,  and  the  intelligence  of  man- 
kind can  be  counted  upon  eventually  to  take  hold 
of  this  international  problem  and  prevent  the 
hurling  of  one  people  against  another  by  state 
rivalry.  Even  were  there  nothing  at  stake 
more  important  to  the  world  than  trade,  it 
is  inconceivable  that  intelligent  human  beings 
will  tolerate  indefinitely  the  confusion  and  de- 
struction which  are  now  the  order  of  the  day. 
And  it  is  to  this  consideration  more  prob- 
ably than  to  the  higher  ones  of  morality  that 
we  may  look  for  an  ending  of  the  business 
of  war.  For  in  the  last  analysis  this  thing 
which  we  call  trade  is  the  physical  nervous  sys- 
tem over  which  the  finer  sentiments  of  mankind 
flash  to  and  fro  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  And 
more  than  once  in  the  history  of  the  world  have 
commercial  considerations  supplied  the  main 
motive  for  larger  political  unions.  It  was  this, 
we  remember,  that  started  the  movement  which 
resulted  in  the  establishment  of  our  own  Federal 
Union. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  people  of  Holland 
were  content  periodically  to  pick  up  their  pos- 
sessions or  such  part  of  them  as  they  could  get 

114 


EMPIRE  OB  FEDERATION 

away  with  and  flee  before  the  sea,  until  finally 
the  futility  of  this  procedure  struck  home  and 
dikes  were  built  to  hold  back  the  ocean.  What 
the  Hollanders  have  done  to  secure  for  them- 
selves peace  uninterrupted  by  the  ravages  of  the 
sea,  the  brains  of  Europe  may  be  depended  upon 
to  do  against  the  intolerable  ravages  of  war. 
And  just  as  in  any  part  of  the  world,  if  a  people 
were  threatened  by  the  sea,  they  would,  if  they 
were  wise,  take  counsel  with  Holland  and  ac- 
quaint themselves  with  the  steps  taken  by  that 
country  to  put  an  end  to  her  menace,  so  we  may 
be  sure  that  sooner  or  later  the  nations  of  Eu- 
rope will  turn  to  the  United  States  of  America 
for  light  upon  the  problem  which  now  confronts 
them.  For  it  is  becoming  evident  that  the  po- 
litical evolution  of  Europe  despite  the  innumer- 
able obstacles  that  stand  in  its  way,  will  follow 
out  in  a  general  manner  either  those  lines  along 
which  the  United  States  have  come,  federation, 
or  those  other  lines  along  which  Germany  and 
Russia  have  traveled  in  the  building  up  of  their 
nationality,  conquest  of  the  weaker  by  the 
stronger.  There  is  no  third  way. 

And  indeed  if  we  will  look  into  it,  this  second 
plan  has  already  been  tried  at  least  five  distinct 
times  in  the  history  of  Europe.  The  Caesars 

115 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

tried  it  and  were  never  able  to  extend  their 
power  beyond  the  Rhine.  Charlemagne  tried  it 
and,  while  he  succeeded  in  pushing  the  boun- 
daries of  his  empire  northward  to  the  Baltic, 
in  the  South,  Spain  and  southern  Italy  remained 
aloof.  The  Fredericks  and  the  Ottos  tried  it 
and  their  failure  postponed  for  centuries  the 
rise  of  modern  Germany.  Charles  V  tried  it 
and  in  the  very  heart  of  his  empire,  France, 
despite  the  forces  hurled  against  her,  was  able 
to  maintain  her  independence.  Napoleon  tried 
it  and  for  all  his  unequaled  ability  as  a  con- 
queror, the  North  and  East  remained  unsub- 
dued. And  every  one  of  these  partial  successes 
toward  the  unification  of  Europe  has  been  fol- 
lowed by  a  break-up;  in  every  case  blood  and 
treasure  have  been  lavished  in  vain. 

And  yet,  as  though  the  people  of  Europe  were 
unaware  of  all  this,  for  a  sixth  time  it  is  being 
tried.  East  and  west,  Germany  is  hurling  her 
might  against  those  eternal  walls  at  the  base 
of  which,  forgotten  it  would  seem,  lie  the  bones 
of  the  ancestors  of  the  present  armies.  And 
already,  as  though  Nature  had  determined  to 
convince  the  people  of  Europe  that  they  are  go- 
ing about  it  in  the  wrong  way,  despite  the  un- 
paralleled slaughter,  the  like  of  which  none  of 

116 


EMPIRE  OE  FEDERATION 

the  other  would-be  conquerors  of  the  Continent 
ever  knew,  the  surge  has  been  checked,  the  iron 
lines  that  were  to  encircle  Europe  are  at  bay. 
The  lesson  which  it  took  France,  under  Napo-( 
leon,  twenty  years  to  learn,  and  the  Romans 
centuries,  Germany  is  learning  in  a  few  months. 
Is  it  possible  that  Europe  will  require  further 
proof  that  she  is  pursuing  the  wrong  course  to- 
ward peace  and  unity?  Will  she  still  persist  in 
her  madness  until  that  Power,  which  is  ever 
working  toward  the  unification  of  separated 
peoples,  finally  relents  and  gives  Europe  hef 
heart's  desire — at  the  hands  of  Russia? 

Will  Italy  and  France  wait  until  by  some  new 
alliance — alliances  are  ever  changing — the  at- 
present  disrupted  Teutonic  peoples  are  brought 
into  a  menacing  unity,  and  one  by  land  and  the 
other  by  sea  go  forth  together  to  accomplish  the 
inevitable?  Will  England  wait  until  some  flash 
of  common  interest  and  common  desire  for  those 
rich  and  widely  separated  parts  of  her  empire 
shall  unite  against  her  the  peoples  of  the  Con- 
tinent ?  Will  Germany  wait  until  that  which  lit- 
tle Belgium  has  suffered  at  the  hands  of  Ger- 
many, Germany  in  her  turn  shall  suffer  at  the 
hands  of  the  over-flowing  population  of  Russia? 
One  thing  is  certain :  if  after  the  present  war  the 

117 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

lesson  of  the  ages  is  still  not  learned,  that  sym- 
pathy which,  despite  their  continued  folly,  the 
world  still  feels  for  the  separated  peoples  of  Eu- 
rope will  not  be  forthcoming  when  the  sword  of 
the  Slav  shall  come  down  and  put  an  end  forever 
to  their  dissensions. 

When  the  smoke  of  the  present  war  has  blown 
away  and  it  has  become  clear  even  to  the  blind 
that  for  nineteen  hundred  years  the  peoples  of 
Europe  have  been  vainly  struggling  in  the  cul- 
de-sac  of  an  imperial  state,  prophets  upon  the 
mountain  tops  will  turn  their  eyes  across  the 
sea,  and  as  America  has  in  many  instances 
profited  by  the  experience  of  Europe,  Europe  in 
turn  will  profit  by  the  experience  of  America. 
We  may  not  have  distinguished  ourselves  in  a 
world  way  in  the  arts ;  we  may  not  have  worked 
out  so  well  as  Europe  some  of  those  social  and 
municipal  problems  which  are  daily  becoming 
more  acute,  but  in  this  at  least  we  stand  su- 
preme :  we  have  solved  the  problem  of  the  uni- 
fication of  states;  we  have  demonstrated  be- 
yond controversy  that  it  is  possible  for  sepa- 
rated governments  to  interwork  under  the  sup- 
erintendence of  one,  and  that  all  this  is  not  in- 
consistent with  the  expansion  of  the  liberty  of 
the  individual.  So  much  at  least  we  have  ac- 

118 


EMPIRE  OR  FEDERATION 

complished,  and  after  a  hundred  and  twenty-five 
years  of  experience  we  believe  that  our  system 
as  a  whole  is  sound  and  capable  of  successful 
operation  in  any  part  of  the  world. 

Europe,  of  course,  has  obstacles  to  overcome 
in  the  application  of  the  American  system  which 
our  forefathers  had  not  to  face.  The  inhabi- 
tants of  the  thirteen  Colonies  were  virtually  a 
unit  in  race,  in  religion,  and  in  their  conception 
of  the  relation  between  the  state  and  the  indi- 
vidual. And,  furthermore,  a  common  language 
underwarped  their  every-day  life  and  pre- 
served, despite  their  multifarious  political  and 
commercial  rivalries,  all  the  essentials  of  broth- 
erhood. And  therefore  the  task  which  confronted 
the  statesmen  of  our  Revolutionary  period  was 
of  a  superficial  nature  and  easy  of  performance 
as  compared  with  that  which  confronts  Euro- 
pean statesmen  to-day.  It  is  difficult  for  us  in 
America  to  realize  the  height  and  extent  of  the 
barriers  that  must  be  overcome  before  the  peo- 
ple of  Europe  may  permanently  settle  down  to 
the  enjoyment  of  that  order  and  security  which 
we  who  have  grown  up  in  it  have  come  to  regard 
as  a  natural  endowment,  like  space  and  air. 

Instead  of  one  race,  Europe  has  at  least  three, 
of  such  magnitude  and  influence  in  continental 

119 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

affairs  that  no  effort  toward  unification  is  in 
the  least  worth  while  that  does  not  meet  with 
the  approval  of  all  three.  The  Latin  race,  com- 
posed of  the  Italians,  the  French,  the  Spanish 
and  the  Portuguese  peoples ;  the  Teutonic  race, 
made  up  of  the  English,  the  German,  the  Aus- 
trian, the  Dutch,  the  Swede,  the  Norwegian,  and 
the  Dane;  and  the  Slavonic  race,  embracing 
chiefly  the  Russian  proper  and  the  Pole,  whether 
in  Russia  or  in  Germany  or  in  Austria,  together 
with  almost  all  the  Balkan  peoples,  and  many 
others  chiefly  in  the  Austrian  provinces — all 
these  must  somehow  be  reconciled  and  brought 
to  a  knowledge  of  their  fundamental  identity 
and  to  a  willingness  to  give  and  take  to  the  end 
that  strife  among  them  may  be  put  away. 

The  difficulty  inherent  in  the  bringing  together 
of  these  alien  elements  is  accentuated  when  we 
remember  that  these  three  races  represent  on  the 
whole  three  distinct  religions  or  rather  three  dis- 
tinct branches  of  one  religion.  The  Latin  is,  of 
course,  mainly  Roman  Catholic,  the  Teuton 
chiefly  Protestant,  while  the  Slav  belongs  on  the 
whole  to  the  Orthodox  or  Greek  Catholic  Church. 
And  between  these,  between  even  the  two  con- 
servative branches,  the  Roman  Catholic  and  the 
Greek  Catholic,  the  differences,  far  from  being 

120 


EMPIRE  OR  FEDERATION 

superficial,  strike  deep  into  their  essential  struc- 
ture. On  the  other  hand,  as  a  solid  beam  run- 
ning the  full  length  and  reinforcing  these  three 
pieces  is  the  mighty  secular  age  that  is  growing 
up.  Yesterday  enlightened  Europe  was  the  hat- 
tie-ground  of  fighting  faiths.  To-day  even  the 
Turk,  whose  sword  once  swept  the  earth  at  the 
call  of  the  Prophet,  is  deaf  to  the  preaching  of 
a  holy  war.  Slowly  but  surely  out  of  the  wreck- 
age of  narrow  sects  and  religions  a  single  spa- 
cious temple  is  rising  to  be  the  home  of  a  new 
and  united  humanity. 

Sooner  or  later  the  nations  will  follow  the 
sects,  though  the  lines  of  the  former  are  la- 
mentably slow  in  disappearing.  So  far  as  those 
of  the  Latin  stock  are  concerned,  they  seem  to 
have  passed  through  that  passion  for  empire 
from  which  England  too  is  just  emerging  into  a 
strange  lassitude,  and  with  which  Germany, 
whose  youth,  as  we  have  seen,  has  been  pro- 
longed, is  so  aflame.  And  the  Slav,  solitary 
there  in  the  North,  is  just  entering  the  period 
of  his  nationality,  and  has  had  so  little  inter- 
course with  the  other  nations  of  Europe  that  off- 
hand we  should  say  that  he  would  probably 
be  distrustful  of  any  suggestions  of  federation. 
And  yet  if  we  are  wise  we  will  ponder  long  the 

121 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

character  and  history  of  this  people  before  we 
venture  upon  such  an  assumption.  The  Slav  in 
many  respects,  owing  to  his  mingling  with  the 
Oriental,  is  older  and  more  mature  than  either 
the  Latin  or  the  Teuton.  And,  as  I  have  tried 
to  show  elsewhere,  he  is  instinctively  more  co- 
operative and  by  nature  more  capable  of  broth- 
erhood than  many  of  his  apparently  more  ad- 
vanced neighbors.  That  this  is  no  fancy  at  once 
becomes  evident  when  we  remember  that  it  was 
at  the  initiative  of  the  present  Czar  of  Rus- 
sia that  there  was  established  as  a  preliminary 
step  to  a  greater  union  the  Hague  Court  which, 
discredited  though  it  now  is,  was  at  least  a  prof- 
fer of  brotherhood.  And  as  a  further  reminder 
to  the  world  that  is  too  prone  to  forget  the 
nobler  side  of  Russian  character,  who  was  it  that 
exactly  one  hundred  years  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  present  war  proposed  to  the  nations  of 
Europe  ' '  a  league  of  which  the  principle  was  to 
be  obligatory  mediation,  and  which  should  aim, 
among  other  objects,  at  framing  a  code  of  the 
law  of  nations"?  Alexander  I,  Czar  of  Russia. 
"With  what  feeling  must  Europe  now  look  back 
upon  that  offer ! 

And,  in  respect  of  language,  consider,  as  com- 
pared to  America  of  the  Revolution,  the  babel  of 

122 


EMPIRE  OB  FEDERATION 

tongues  that  cry  division  through  Europe.  We 
in  America,  into  whose  wide  and  vital  language 
alien  tongues  disappear  as  streams  disappear 
into  the  ocean,  understand  virtually  nothing  of 
the  difficulties  which  are  bred  of  these  linguis- 
tic differences.  Of  the  problem  which  Austria- 
Hungary  has  encountered  in  the  face  of  this  con- 
fusion, we  know  something.  And  Europe  is  but 
a  larger  Austria-Hungary.  But  Austria's  dif- 
ficulty, we  must  remember,  arose  from  the  fact 
that  she  sought  this  blending  of  tongues  to  fur- 
ther her  own  despotic  domination,  whereas  the 
spirit  of  federation  is  in  its  very  nature  con- 
ciliatory. 

Though  marked,  the  differences  which  we 
have  enumerated  are  in  reality  much  less  im- 
portant than  they  appear  and  may  confidently 
be  expected  to  give  way  when  once  the  people 
realize  that  permanent  peace  is  absolutely  im- 
possible until  some  greater  union  is  brought 
about.  Certainly  when  they  once  understand 
that  it  is  possible  to  establish  a  United  States 
of  Europe  without  seriously  interfering  with 
these  local  interests,  we  may  be  sure  that  the 
chief  obstacle  to  the  attainment  of  the  great 
union  will  have  been  removed.  If  they  can  be 
made  to  see,  for  instance,  that  Italy  may  still  be 

123 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

Italy,  that  Russia  may  still  go  on  with  her  na- 
tional development,  that  each  nation  may  con- 
tinue to  work  out  in  its  own  way  its  peculiar 
destiny,  retaining  even  its  monarch — if  after  the 
present  war  there  are  such  things — it  is  incon- 
ceivable, when  the  people  once  fully  understand 
this,  that  they  will  allow  their  petty  jealousies 
of  one  another  to  prevent  the  coming  of  that 
one  which  all  may  hail  as  a  common  savior. 

The  only  obstacle  of  serious  aspect  that 
stands  in  the  way  of  this  larger  union  is,  of 
course,  the  character  of  the  new  thing  and  its 
relation  to  its  creators.  And  it  is  upon  this 
phase  of  the  matter  that  the  experience  of 
America  may  be  of  infinite  value  in  determining 
what  that  character  and  those  relations  should 
be.  For  in  this  most  important  respect, 
America's  problem  of  yesterday  and  Europe's 
problem  of  to-day  are  identical. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  if  Europe  is  wise 
she  will  read  the  political  history  of  America 
from  the  first  appearance  of  the  Colonies  as  free 
states  and  will  dwell  long  upon  that  rudimen- 
tary union  which  they  first  formed  and  will  con- 
sider carefully  its  workings  between  the  estab- 
lishment of  peace  and  the  adoption  of  the  Con- 
stitution. For  it  was  during  this  period  that 

124 


EMPIRE  OR  FEDERATION 

America  solved  the  vital  problems  of  union,  the 
neglect  of  which  has  again  brought  Europe  to 
the  verge  of  destruction.  In  these  pages  she 
will  find  among  independent  states  the  same 
reluctance  to  a  larger  union  which  for  centuries 
has  marked  the  history  of  Europe.  A  thousand 
years  hence  when  the  World  State  has  been 
firmly  established,  the  political  work  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  will  probably  stand  out  as  his  su- 
preme contribution.  And  nowhere  thus  far  has 
his  marvelous  political  vision  led  him  more  di- 
rectly to  the  true  path  than  it  did  in  America  in 
that  important  decade  between  1780  and  1790. 
For  if  we  omit  the  period  of  the  war  when  for- 
eign pressure  held  the  thirteen  states  together, 
five  years  of  independent  life  were  sufficient  to 
demonstrate  conclusively  to  the  people  of  the 
separate  states  that  independence  was  incon- 
sistent with  their  highest  development.  And 
they  began  forthwith  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a 
"more  perfect  union"  than  that  under  which 
they  had  lived  hitherto.  And  in  looking  over 
the  efforts  which  they  made  to  get  light  upon  the 
problem  of  union,  we  are  struck  with  the  breadth 
of  knowledge  which  the  leaders  of  the  union 
movement  had  gathered  from  the  history  and 
experience  of  other  peoples.  Every  virtue  and 

125 


THE  WOELD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

every  flaw  in  the  political  systems  of  the  past, 
from  the  Delphic  Amphictiony  to  the  Union  of 
the  Swiss  Cantons,  are  at  their  tongues'  ends, 
and  they  are  able  and  willing  to  profit  by 
the  mistakes  of  others.  Similarly,  European 
statesmen,  if  they  are  wise,  will  profit  by  the 
mistakes  of  our  forefathers. 

One  of  these  mistakes  which  became  apparent 
almost  immediately  after  peace  had  been  estab- 
lished was  the  idea  which  had  prevailed  from 
the  very  beginning  of  their  separation  from 
England,  that  a  loose  confederation  would  be 
sufficient.  That  Europe  had  not  profited  in  this 
regard  by  the  experience  of  America  is  evident 
in  the  faith  and  large  expectations  which  she 
placed  in  the  Hague  Court.  Foolish  as  we  now 
see  that  our  forefathers  were  and  as  they  them- 
selves within  a  few  years  realized,  to  their  credit 
it  must  be  said  that  at  no  time  even  in  their 
most  complete  isolation  were  they  so  visionary 
as  to  imagine  that  a  mere  court  of  arbitration 
would  serve  any  practical  purpose.  Their  very 
first  efforts  to  bring  about  a  closer  relation  be- 
tween the  states  resulted  in  a  congress  with 
power  compared  to  which,  weak  as  it  was,  was 
immeasurably  more  adequate  than  that  exer- 
cised by  the  Hague  Court.  The  Continental 

126 


EMPIRE  OB  FEDERATION 

Congress  was  a  sincere  effort  toward  union, 
whereas  the  Hague  Court  is  something  obvi- 
ously set  up  for  no  other  purpose,  it  would  seem, 
than  to  gratify  the  aspirations  of  certain  well- 
meaning  idealists  among  the  nations.  Conceive 
of  the  legislative  and  executive  departments  of 
any  of  our  large  cities,  especially  its  police  sys- 
tem, to  be  suddenly  abolished,  leaving  only  the 
courts,  and  these  exercising,  not  as  now,  power 
to  compel  to  come  before"  them  those  charged 
with  crime,  but  acting  as  arbitrators  only  when 
requested,  and  you  have  a  comical  picture  in  all 
its  dignity  of  the  Hague  Court  among  the  na- 
tions. Compare  to  this  pale,  do-nothing  judi- 
ciary the  first  Continental  Congress  that  met 
under  the  Articles  of  Confederation.  Among 
these  Articles  which  marked  the  first  serious 
get-together  movement  among  the  new  states, 
we  find  the  following  provisions.  Imagine  even 
these  in  force  in  Europe  before  August  1, 1914, 
and  conceive  what  might  now  be  the  happy  con- 
dition of  the  continent: 

No  vessels  of  war  shall  be  kept  in  time  of  peace  by 
any  State,  except  such  number  only  as  shall  be  deemed 
necessary  by  the  United  States,  in  Congress  assembled, 
for  the  defense  of  such  State  or  its  trade ;  nor  shall  any 
body  of  forces  be  kept  up  by  any  State  in  time  of 

127 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

peace,  except  such  number  only  as,  in  the  judgment 
of  the  United  States,  in  Congress  assembled,  shall  be 
deemed  requisite  to  garrison  the  forts  necessary  for  the 
defense  of  such  State ;  .  .  . 

No  State  shall  engage  in  any  war  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  United  States,  in  Congress  assembled,  un- 
less such  State  be  actually  invaded  by  enemies,  or  shall 
have  received  certain  advice  of  a  resolution  being 
formed  by  some  nation  ...  to  invade  such  State, 
and  the  danger  is  so  imminent  as  not  to  admit  of  a 
delay,  till  the  United  States,  in  Congress  assembled, 
can  be  consulted;  nor  shall  any  State  grant  commis- 
sions to  any  ships  or  vessels  of  war,  nor  letters  of  mark 
or  reprisal,  except  it  be  after  a  declaration  of  war  by 
the  United  States,  in  Congress  assembled,  and  then  only 
against  the  kingdom  or  State,  and  the  subjects  thereof, 
against  which  war  has  been  so  declared,  and  under 
such  regulations  as  shall  be  established  by  the  United 
States,  in  Congress  assembled,  .  .  . 

The  United  States,  in  Congress  assembled,  shall  have 
the  sole  and  exclusive  right  and  power  of  determining 
on  peace  and  war,  except  in  the  cases  mentioned.  .  .  . 

The  United  States,  in  Congress  assembled,  shall  also 
be  the  last  resort  on  appeal  in  all  disputes  now  subsist- 
ing or  that  hereafter  may  arise  between  two  or  more 
States  concerning  boundary,  jurisdiction,  or  any  other 
cause  whatever ; — 

And  for  the  further  strengthening  of  the  new 
union,  the  aforesaid  Congress  was  authorized 
to  appoint  a  committee,  one  delegate  from  each 
state,  to  sit  in  the  recess  of  Congress,  and  such 
other  committees  and  officers  as  might  be  neces- 

128 


EMPIEE  OR  FEDERATION 

sary  for  managing  the  general  affairs  of  the 
United  States  under  their  direction. 

Here,  more  than  a  century  and  a  quarter  ago, 
was  an  experiment  in  political  union  which  so 
far  as  any  influence  it  has  had  upon  efforts  to- 
ward international  union,  might  as  well  never 
have  been  made.  Nowhere  among  European 
statesmen  do  we  find  that  open  mind,  that  eager- 
ness to  get  light  upon  the  problem  of  the  larger 
state,  which  characterized  the  early  Americans 
in  a  similar  condition  of  disunion.  Time  and 
again,  as  we  have  seen,  they  have  plunged  into 
the  abyss  of  war,  cherishing  the  vain  hope  that 
somehow  or  other  the  bubble  of  empire  might 
light  upon  them.  And  when  peace  has  returned 
and  the  old  question  of  how  war  may  be  avoided 
for  the  future  has  again  pushed  to  the  front, 
never  has  any  serious  suggestion  led  toward  the 
path  of  federation,  but  always  it  has  seemed  that 
peace  was  to  be  found  along  the  lines  of  more 
highly  developed  nationalities,  and  then  by  so 
grouping  these  nationalities  and  so  balancing 
one  group  against  another  that  the  least  tamper- 
ing with  the  foundations  would  inevitably  bring 
down  the  whole  mass.  In  a  word,  the  European 
mind,  despite  its  centuries  of  experience  in  state 
building,  has  thus  far  shown  itself  incapable  of 

129 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

seeing  beyond  a  loose  political  dualism.  In  the 
face  of  failure  after  failure,  they  have  continued 
with  childlike  trust  to  build  upon  the  sand  of  al- 
liances. When  a  strong  nation  has  been  won 
away  to  the  other  side,  decades  of  hatred  of 
that  nation  have  suddenly  disappeared  and 
shouts  have  gone  up  over  the  new  camp-fellow 
as  though  this  time  the  good  fortune  were  to  be 
eternal.  And  this  has  gone  on  with  fatuous  illu- 
sion, generation  after  generation.  How  often 
have  the  capitals  of  Europe  thrilled  at  the  rumor 
of  a  new  ally !  To-day  it  is  the  czar,  to-morrow 
Italy,  and  the  next  day  the  Japanese.  Kings 
have  become  popular  and  statesmen  famous  by 
the  mere  signing  up  of  a  new  companion-in- 
arms. Cabinets  have  fallen  because  this  ad- 
vantage has  been  lost.  Indeed,  the  main  pur- 
pose of  European  statesmanship  has  been  the 
forging  of  stronger  alliances. 

In  this  respect,  the  ambassadors  of  European 
nations  lead  the  world.  How  thoroughly  ac- 
quainted they  are  with  every  vital  need  and 
secret  ambition  of  the  state  which  they  may  hap- 
pen at  the  time  to  be  seeking  as  an  ally !  And 
with  what  finesse  and  profound  understanding 
are  the  advantages  of  such  an  alliance  pre- 
sented! And  once  secured,  what  incalculable 

130 


EMPIRE  OR  FEDERATION 

sums  of  money  are  often  advanced  to  render  the 
new  ally  capable  of  the  most  powerful  support  in 
time  of  war ! 

And  in  this  respect  what  marvels  have  been 
accomplished!  Like  the  fleets  of  the  Lillipu- 
tians, nation  has  been  pulled  from  nation.  The 
ends  of  the  earth  have  been  brought  together. 
At  a  stroke  of  the  pen  those  "  eternal "  racial 
antipathies  about  which  we  have  been  hearing 
so  much,  have  completely  vanished.  Between 
England  and  France,  between  the  German  and 
the  Turk,  between  the  Russian  and  the  Japanese, 
a  wonderful  love  appears.  And  all  these  prodi- 
gious labors  have  been  spent  solely  to  bring 
about  cooperation  in  time  of  war.  Toward  co- 
operation in  time  of  peace  and  for  peaceful  pur- 
poses, toward  union,  toward  a  United  States 
of  Europe,  nothing  has  been  done.  We  have 
Gladstones  and  Bismarcks  and  Cavours,  but  not 
one  single  European  statesman.  As  far  as  po- 
litical vision  is  concerned  Julius  Caesar,  two 
thousand  years  ago,  saw  as  far  as  they.  And  it 
is  from  these  nations  that  the  dream  now  goes 
forth  to  rule  the  world ! 

For  anything  potential  of  the  slightest  ad- 
vantage in  the  time  of  war,  the  European  mind 
has  been  as  marvelously  open  as  was  the  mind 

131 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

of  the  Greek  to  the  beauties  of  art.  If  in  the 
remotest  corner  of  the  globe  some  new  explosive 
has  shown  itself  in  the  test-tube  of  some  labora- 
tory, how  quickly  has  the  rumor  of  it  reached 
the  cabinets  of  Europe,  and  with  what  per- 
sistence and  with  what  stealth  and  with  what 
corruption  of  men  has  the  secret  been  sought 
out!  Consider  the  war  equipment  of  the  Eu- 
ropean nations  and  see  how  cosmopolitan  they 
are.  The  brains  of  the  world  are  there.  In 
dreadnought  construction,  in  air  craft,  in  mines 
and  torpedoes,  to  the  smallest  device  of  shell 
extraction,  how  familiar  is  Europe  with  the 
best  that  America  has  produced !  Indeed,  this 
acquaintance  with  what  we  have  done  toward 
success  in  war  is  equaled  only  by  the  ignorance 
of  what  we  have  done  to  avert  war.  In 
nothing  is  the  essential  martial  character  of 
Europe  more  conspicuous  than  in  its  respect  for 
American  war  inventions  and  its  contempt  for 
American  peace  inventions.  Has  a  single  Eu- 
ropean statesman  read  the  history  of  the  for- 
mation of  the  United  States  of  America  with 
any  insight  into  its  possible  application  to  the 
European  situation?  To  have  read  it  as  a  book 
is  one  thing.  To  have  read  it  as  a  page  of  life, 
luminous  with  divine  guidance  for  the  promo- 

132 


EMPIRE  OE  FEDERATION 

ters  of  a  union  of  states,  is  quite  a  different 
thing.  Do  these  builders  of  the  Hague  Court 
know,  I  wonder,  that  that  first  attempt  of 
America  toward  union,  centuries  ahead  of  the 
Hague  Court  as  it  was  in  practical  statesman- 
ship— do  they  know  that  a  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  years  ago  this  attempt  failed?  And  do  they 
know  why  it  failed?  And  have  they  ever  con- 
sidered what  our  forefathers  did  to  remedy 
these  defects? 

It  is  probably  too  much  to  expect,  however, 
that  an  appreciation  of  what  America  has  ac- 
complished in  the  science  of  government  should 
show  itself  among  the  confident  European 
statesmen  before  the  conviction  has  struck  bot- 
tom that  their  own  systems  have  failed.  To  an 
outsider,  with  even  the  most  general  knowledge 
of  the  war  cycles  in  European  history,  it  would 
seem  that  that  hour  is  already  long  overdue. 
Yet  even  now,  torn  as  that  continent  again  is 
with  the  strife  of  states,  virtually  all  that  we 
hear  bearing  upon  the  to-morrow  of  peace  has 
to  do  in  one  way  or  another  with  the  pernicious 
old  idea  of  empire,  with  the  British  empire  or 
the  German  empire  or  the  Russian  empire,  and 
with  guesses  at  which  of  these  will  achieve  the 
ultimate  dominion.  Above  the  thunder  of  can- 

133 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

non  and  the  wail  of  the  wounded,  not  a  voice 
from  the  inmost  heart  of  any  of  the  warring 
peoples  is  heard  demanding  that  the  nation 
cease  its  struggle  for  empire  and  enter  with 
others  upon  the  path  of  federation.  Millions  go 
singing  down  the  road  to  death,  clasping  to  their 
bosoms  the  hope  of  empire  or  the  determination, 
hand  in  hand  as  allies,  to  hurl  back  the  imperial 
legions.  Perhaps  when  the  war  is  over  the  na- 
tions of  Europe  will  perceive  the  necessity  of 
something  more  permanent  than  alliances.  But 
just  now,  if  such  an  aspiration  exists,  it  lies  com- 
pletely hidden  under  the  smoke  and  tumult  of 
war. 


134 


THE  FALL  OE  RISE  OF  SOCIALISM 


VI 

THE  FALL  OB   RISE   OP   SOCIALISM 

FOB  a  time  at  least  the  "menace  of  Social- 
ism" has  been  laid.  That  dark  cloud 
which  for  years  has  been  gathering  over  Europe, 
threatening  the  nations  with  revolution,  has  sud- 
denly been  swallowed  up  by  a  thunder-storm, 
to  avert  which  was  one  of  the  aims  of  Socialism. 
Therefore  it  is  a  double  defeat  that  Socialism 
has  suffered;  her  dream  of  peace  has  been  shat- 
tered, and  that  other  dream,  of  more  substantial 
promise — the  rise  of  an  international  working- 
class  which,  with  myriads  of  hands  interlocked 
across  boundaries  and  through  alien  tongues, 
was  to  establish  brotherhood  and  bring  in  the 
new  age,  at  least  for  the  working-population 
of  Europe — this  orb,  too,  has  passed  behind  the 
dark  planet  of  war.  Those  elaborate  plans  for 
the  overthrow  of  capitalism,  that  consuming 
passion  and  infectious  self-sacrifice  for  a  new 
and  better  order  of  daily  life,  those  mighty  lead- 
ers, and  those  strong  lines  of  brave  men,  who, 

137 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

with  their  feet  upon  the  idea  of  nationality,  were 
holding  Europe  together — little  ridges  of  sand 
caught  up  as  by  a  whirlwind  and  blown  away. 
The  German  is  German  still,  la  belle  France  is 
mightier  than  Jaures,  the  troops  that  England 
is  sending  to  the  Continent  are  landing  not  as 
Socialists,  but  as  soldiers.  Once  more  it  is 
made  plain  that  the  old  is  stronger  than  the  new, 
that  a  passion  that  has  had  its  home  in  the 
human  heart  for  a  thousand  years  will  outlast 
the  passion  of  yesterday. 

To  a  large  class,  the  world  over,  this  check 
and  apparent  collapse  of  Socialism  is  the  one 
compensation  for  the  horrors  of  the  present 
war.  For  to  a  class  living  in  affluence  and  se- 
curity, breathing  the  air  of  a  perpetual  Sans 
Souci,  the  killing  and  wounding  of  millions  of 
men,  the  paralyzing  of  business,  and  the  wide 
suffering  spread  abroad  to  a  degree  through  all 
lands — all  this,  seen  from  the  window,  is  at  least 
to  be  preferred  to  hostile  forces  seriously  at 
work  under  the  foundations  of  the  house.  And 
it  was  the  foundations  of  society,  or  of  that 
part  of  society  that  is  peculiarly  interested 
in  the  preservation  of  the  present  order,  that 
Socialism  was  sapping.  And  therefore  a  catas- 
trophe which  diverts  such  forces  from  their  sub- 

138 


THE  FALL  OR  EISE  OF  SOCIALISM 

terranean  attack  comes  to  this  class  not  without 
a  certain  cause  for  gratification.  For  the  pres- 
ent war  is  in  Europe,  and  its  horrors  are  chiefly 
confined  to  that  continent ;  whereas  the  menace 
of  Socialism  was  world-wide.  And  the  present 
war,  too,  is  a  thing  of  the  present,  whereas  So- 
cialism, could  it  have  been  triumphant,  would 
have  perpetuated  itself  beyond  any  possibility 
to  foresee  its  end.  And  therefore  the  long  sigh 
of  relief  that  the  menace  is  past.  When  the 
present  war  is  over,  society  will  settle  down  to 
work  in  the  good  old  way.  Karl  Marx,  that 
idol  of  millions,  will  take  his  place  upon  the  shelf 
beside  Owen  and  Fourier  in  that  long  line  of 
dreamers  of  the  impossible. 

And  something  of  the  same  feeling  that  the 
great  movement  has  suffered  a  severe  set-back 
is  shared  by  many  of  those  to  whom  the  ad- 
vancement of  Socialism  has  been  a  life-work. 
Everywhere  there  is  despair  of  vanished  hopes, 
or  at  least  an  acute  disappointment.  And  while 
the  conviction  still  lingers  that  the  cause  which 
the  now-atrophied  thing  represented  is  just  and 
that  the  long  and  arduous  work  of  education  has 
not  been  wholly  in  vain,  it  has  come  as  a  blow 
upon  the  head  that  a  surge  of  such  strength  and 
such  grandiose  movement  should  suddenly  be 

139 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

arested  and  thrust  under,  while,  as  though  no 
effort  had  been  made  to  erase  them,  old  national 
lines  reappear. 

Despite  this  gratification  and  disappointment, 
however,  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  surprise 
in  this  respect  which  the  present  war  has  oc- 
casioned may  be  equaled  by  another  surprise 
which  may  come  when  the  smoke  and  uproar 
have  passed  away.  For  this  war  is  not  some- 
thing which,  meteor-like,  without  any  connection 
with  our  world  life,  dropped  upon  us  from  the 
skies,  and  which  will  presently  go  back  into  the 
skies,  leaving  only  ruined  buildings  and  the 
scarred  earth  to  remind  humanity  that  a  storm 
has  passed.  Slowly,  through  long  years,  it  has 
projected  itself  from  the  soul  of  the  peoples  of 
Europe  as  an  ear  of  corn  is  projected  from  its 
stalk.  And  when  peace  has  returned,  the  con- 
sequences, we  may  be  sure,  will  flood  back  into 
the  soul  of  man  and  show  themselves  in  all  the 
activities  of  the  future.  To  Socialists,  there- 
fore, as  well  as  to  those  who,  for  one  reason 
or  another,  oppose  Socialism,  the  point  of  vital 
concern  is  how  seriously  the  ideal  of  Socialism 
has  been  affected  by  the  present  war ;  in  a  word, 
whether  what  we  have  witnessed  is  indeed  the 
downfall  of  Socialism  or,  as  is  not  impossible, 

140 


THE  FALL  OE  RISE  OF  SOCIALISM 

a  violent  clearing  away  of  those  encumbrances 
for  the  removal  of  which  the  educational  process 
was  too  slow. 

In  speaking  of  the  erasure  of  Socialism  by  na- 
tionalism, I  have  said  that  it  is  the  erasure  of 
the  younger  by  the  older,  a  creed  of  yesterday 
by  a  primal  impulse  that  strikes  its  root  far 
back  in  the  past.  And  this  is  the  popular  view, 
that  Socialism  had  its  origin  in  Karl  Marx, 
whereas  we  come  upon  the  ruins  of  nations  un- 
der the  sand  mounds  of  Egypt  and  Babylonia. 
But  is  this  true?  Did  Socialism  appear  sud- 
denly upon  the  earth  with  the  publication  of 
Das  Kapital,  and  has  it,  with  no  previous  prep- 
aration, built  that  mighty  structure,  the  collapse 
of  which — if  it  has  collapsed — has  been  heard 
above  the  thunder  of  cannon?  Or  did  the  pub- 
lication of  that  book  simply  release  into  a  new 
channel  forces  which  in  one  way  or  another 
had  been  operative  since  the  beginning  of  the 
world? 

Socialism — what  does  Socialism  mean?  Evi- 
dently mass  action  as  opposed  to  individual  ef- 
fort. For  when  we  eliminate  the  individual  ac- 
cretions, when  we  boil  down  the  thousand  and 
one  definitions  by  which  men  have  sought  to  out- 
line and  express  the  real  meaning  of  this  world- 

141 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

troubler,  this  is  the  residue,  that  it  is  an  asso- 
ciated effort  That  this  effort  during  the  last 
half-century  has  been  consciously  directed  to- 
ward industrial  ends,  toward  a  more  scientific 
production  and  a  more  equitable  distribution, 
in  no  wise  affects  the  great  fact  that  the  essence 
of  Socialism  is  cooperation.  And  anything  that 
stimulates  cooperation,  in  whatever  direction  it 
may  turn  the  energies  of  men,  is  certain  to  bring 
results  that  sooner  or  later  will  show  themselves 
in  every  part  of  the  social  structure,  just  as  at 
the  coming  of  spring  the  awakening  influence 
of  this  season  is  seen  in  every  living  portion  of 
the  landscape. 

Consider  from  this  point  of  view  the  meaning 
of  war.  Here,  it  is  evident,  is  the  oldest  So- 
cialist movement  among  men,  the  one  enterprise 
in  which  in  all  times  and  in  all  countries  men 
have  shown  not  only  a  willingness,  but  a  passion, 
to  sacrifice  themselves  for  what  they  conceived 
to  be  the  common  good.  War  alone  has  been 
the  great  corrector  of  the  too  highly  developed 
self.  That  demon  which  we  see  to-day  strew- 
ing the  fields  of  Europe  with  the  slain,  he,  it 
seems,  was  the  first,  as  he  is  still  the  one  in- 
spiring, instructor  in  the  supreme  glory  of  the 
effacement  of  the  individual,  or  more  exactly, 

142 


THE  FALL  OR  RISE  OF  SOCIALISM 

let  us  say,  in  the  creation  of  a  social  choir  in 
which  there  is  a  happy  blending  and  a  joyous  co- 
operation of  parts. 

Time  and  again  during  the  last  eight  months 
we  have  heard  the  expression,  "the  war  ma- 
chine." The  term  itself  indicates  a  conscious- 
ness on  the  part  of  men  that  here  is  a  social 
thing  that  is  working  toward  a  given  end  with 
that  perfect  unity  of  action  which  characterizes 
a  piece  of  machinery.  And  not  solely  because 
of  the  monstrous  work  in  which  it  is  engaged, 
but  also  because  of  this  nice  adjustment  of  part 
to  part  and  the  smooth  movement  of  the  whole, 
we  think  of  the  thing  as  inhuman.  Educated  to 
the  idea  that  life,  to  be  life,  must  be  a  competi- 
tion between  persons,  that  friction  is  somehow 
necessary  to  individual  and  social  efficiency  and 
well-being,  we  are  sterile  of  images  with 
which  to  set  forth  in  human  terms  the  marvel- 
ous cooperation  of  part  with  part  and  every 
part  with  the  whole  which  we  see  in  the  national 
war  movements  in  Europe,  and  therefore  we 
call  them  machines.  But  if  we  will  only  watch 
the  working  of  these  machines  in  themselves, 
apart  from  their  collision  with  one  another,  we 
shall  find  that  there  is  something  admirable 
here,  something  which  as  far  surpasses  the  or- 

143 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

ganization  of  the  peaceful  work  of  the  world  as 
harmony  surpasses  discord. 

How  comes  it  we  have  neglected  the  real  les- 
son of  war  and  have  clung  only  to  the  bloody 
husk?  To  what  flaw  in  man's  character  or  to 
what  blunting  of  the  finer  faculties  of  the  mind 
are  we  to  ascribe  the  astounding  fact  that  the 
machinery  of  death  has  been  socialized  while 
the  machinery  of  life  has  been  left  competitive ; 
that  when  a  nation  goes  forth  to  destroy  there 
flashes  through  the  millions  of  that  nation  a 
marvelous  comradeship,  and  the  moment  the 
purpose  of  the  war  has  been  accomplished  and 
the  armies  are  disbanded  to  return  to  the  ma- 
chinery of  peaceful  industry,  these  comrades  are 
obliged  to  unlearn  all  those  fine  lessons  in  co- 
operation for  the  common  good  and  begin  again 
that  competitive  struggle  with  one  another 
which  in  many  ways  is  more  cruel  and  destruc- 
tive both  to  the  individual  and  to  society  than 
the  armed  conflict  that  is  going  on  to-day?  If 
we  could  withdraw  ourselves  from  the  social 
organism  into  which  we  are  born  and  which  we 
accept  as  the  natural  order  of  things,  and  view 
for  the  first  time  the  activities  of  men,  we  should 
be  much  less  surprised  that  men  should  go  to 
war  from  the  fierce  struggle  of  a  competitive 

144 


system  than  that  they  should  return  to  a  com- 
petitive system  from  that  hand-in-hand  adven- 
ture in  cooperation  and  brotherhood  in  which, 
in  these  epic  movements,  from  the  first  to  the 
last  drum-beat  they  are  absorbed.  Only  when 
nation  is  attacking  nation,  it  seems,  are  peoples 
capable  of  swarming  forth  in  that  unity  of  spirit 
to  establish  which  as  a  permanent  relation 
among  men  has  been  the  supreme  aim  of  ideal- 
ists since  society  began. 

It  has  been  said — and  of  all  arguments  against 
Socialism  this  probably  has  been  the  most  ef- 
fective— that  only  by  competition  of  man  with 
man  is  it  possible  to  kindle  and  keep  burning 
that  divine  flame  of  enthusiasm  which  is  essen- 
tial to  individual  efficiency,  and  therefore  that 
anything  tending  to  eliminate  competition  would 
tend  inevitably  to  reduce  society  to  sluggish  mo- 
notony. Yet  from  one  end  of  Europe  to  the 
other,  along  lines  of  battle  in  which  thousands 
of  men,  rivals  of  yesterday,  are  drawn  up  shoul- 
der to  shoulder,  cooperating  with  one  another 
with  such  singleness  of  aim  as  to  make  almost 
sacrilegious  the  least  suggestion  of  rivalry, 
along  these  interminable  lines  runs  an  enthu- 
siasm which  it  would  be  impossible  to  increase 
were  every  soldier  fighting  for  his  private  gain. 

145 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

Nowhere  is  there  a  thought  of  self,  and  yet 
everywhere  there  is  ardor.  Even  that  class- 
struggle  beyond  which  many  Socialists  have 
been  unable  to  see,  the  elimination  of  which  they 
have  declared  to  be  impossible,  has  here  com- 
pletely disappeared.  Men  eminent  in  the  higher 
work  of  the  world  in  days  of  peace,  men  rich 
in  talent  or  in  wealth,  feel  honored  to  serve  in 
places  however  obscure  in  the  present  war.  If 
competition  of  nation  with  nation  in  an  armed 
enterprise,  socialized  as  we  see  it  is  to  the  small- 
est detail,  is  sufficient  to  kindle  so  vast  an  en- 
thusiasm among  men,  why  is  it  we  imagine  that 
a  similar  competition  of  nation  with  nation  in 
the  peaceful  industries,  socialized  as  are  the 
present  war  movements,  but  working  toward  a 
divine  purpose,  the  peaceful  and  joyous  devel- 
opment of  the  race,  would  render  the  man  apa- 
thetic? What  a  monstrous  indictment  of  the 
moral  order  of  the  universe  it  would  be  were 
it  true  that  cooperation  for  the  common  good 
is  profitable  only  in  war,  but  that  in  peace  this 
same  common  good  requires  for  its  advancement 
the  utmost  license  of  man  to  prey  upon  man! 
Under  a  truth  like  this,  could  the  human  mind 
realize  it,  humanity  would  stagger  to  a  despair 
darker  even  than  that  caused  by  present  brutal 

146 


THE  FALL  OB  RISE  OF  SOCIALISM 

catastrophe.    For  this  would  clang  to  forever 
the  door  of  hope. 

Strangely  enough,  just  as  we  are  thinking 
these  thoughts  and  wondering  if  it  is  indeed 
possible  to  kindle  and  keep  alive  in  men  engaged 
in  their  normal  occupations  of  production  some- 
thing of  the  enthusiasm  which  has  been  aroused 
by  the  present  savage  excitement,  along  comes 
one  of  the  foremost  of  American  manufacturers 
who,  having  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  new  age 
that  is  dawning,  has  for  a  year  had  his  vast 
thousands  at  work  upon  a  profit  sharing  basis, 
and  testifies  that  so  marvelous  has  been  the  in- 
crease of  enthusiasm  among  the  men  to  whom 
this  good  fortune  has  come  that  the  company 
has  found  it  necessary  to  hold  them  back  lest 
in  their  overzeal  they  go  too  far.  Now  if  this 
has  been  the  result  simply  of  a  small  sharing 
of  the  profits,  is  it  unreasonable  to  suppose  that 
even  greater  results  of  this  kind  would  be  ob- 
tained if  the  interest  of  these  workers  were  ex- 
tended not  only  to  profits,  but  to  ownership 
also?  He  is  a  poor  student  of  human  nature 
who  does  not  know  that  men  are  more  interested 
in  freedom  than  in  wages.  If  this  manufacturer 
or  any  other  of  our  great  employers  is  curious  to 
know  the  full  capacity  of  men  for  efficient  pro- 

147 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

duction  and  for  advancement  toward  a  thrifty 
and  self -helpful  human  life,  let  him  begin  a  grad- 
ual distribution  of  ownership  with  the  promise 
to  the  men  that  the  plant  shall  be  theirs  just  as 
soon  as  by  a  wise  discharge  of  their  increased 
responsibilities  they  can  prove  that  they  are 
capable  of  complete  ownership.  Then  we  shall 
see  whether  the  business  of  killing  men  is  more 
fruitful  of  enthusiasm  than  the  healthful  ac- 
tivities of  peace  and  growth  and  independ- 
ence. 

But  not  only  in  the  unity  of  emotion  which 
it  has  engendered,  but  also  in  the  practical  work- 
ing of  this  emotion,  the  present  war  is  probably 
the  most  perfect  demonstration  of  the  efficiency 
of  Socialism  that  the  world  has  ever  witnessed. 
To  produce  this  efficient  cooperation,  what  cen- 
turies of  training  have  been  required!  How 
slow  man  has  been  to  learn  the  advantage  of 
applying  even  in  war  this  great  lesson !  When 
we  remember  that  in  the  beginnings  of  society 
armed  bands,  the  embryos  of  the  present  armies, 
were  obliged  somehow  to  find  their  own  food, 
and  that  among  all  early  states  down  even  until 
within  recent  times,  every  soldier  was  expected 
to  supply  his  own  arms  and  equipment,  it  be- 
gins to  dawn  upon  us  that  our  present  amazing 

148 


THE  FALL  OB  RISE  OF  SOCIALISM 

efficiency  in  things  military  is  due  almost  solely 
to  the  fact  that  the  state  of  war  has  for  cen- 
turies been  in  process  of  socialization,  that  the 
individual  who  yesterday  was  obliged  to  take 
thought  for  his  clothing,  for  his  armor,  even  for 
his  own  food  and  shelter,  has  to-day  only  to 
do  his  duty  as  a  soldier  to  be  free  of  all  these 
cares.  The  tocsin  sounds,  and  the  clothing  ap- 
pears ;  the  rifle,  instinct  with  life,  it  would  seem, 
leaps  to  his  hand ;  for  the  cavalryman  the  horse 
with  bridle  and  saddle  is  ready.  For  every  man 
his  implement  is  at  hand.  Long  trains  are  in 
waiting,  and  with  what  unimaginable  conveni- 
ences! Kitchens  with  cooks  capped  and 
aproned ;  hospitals  with  doctors  and  nurses,  cots 
and  bandages,  medicine  for  the  least  blister  of 
the  foot.  A  whole  society  is  in  motion.  Com- 
forts such  as  men  dream  of  in  their  homes  are 
here  in  abundance.  To  the  gathering  millions, 
come,  many  of  them,  from  long  years  of  galling 
economy,  it  is  as  though  some  magician  were 
abroad  assembling  out  of  the  air  these  wonders. 
The  age  of  childhood  has  returned.  One  has 
only  to  run  to  the  great  father  and  be  fed  with 
the  most  wholesome  food,  and  clothed  with  the 
most  scientific  clothing,  and  have  poured  out  at 
his  feet  such  toys  as  the  heart  of  a  child  never 

149 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

dreamed  of;  swords  and  guns  and  cannon  of 
every  description;  trains  and  motors,  subma- 
rines and  flying-ships;  search-lights  for  the 
night  and  wonderful  telescopes  for  the  day. 
And  in  what  quantities !  Usually  when  a  play- 
thing has  been  broken,  there  are  days  of  depri- 
vation. Not  so  here. 

And  once  in  motion,  consider  the  care,  the 
attention,  which  the  great  father  bestows  upon 
his  children.  Man  who  was  yesterday  an  or- 
phan is  to-day  a  cherished  offspring.  And  of 
how  devoted  a  father !  Every  part  of  the  equip- 
ment has  been  arranged  with  a  view  to  the  great- 
est facility  and  comfort  of  motion  and  repose, 
from  the  tooth-brush  to  the  shoe  cut  to  fit  the 
exceptional  foot.  He  has  only  to  march  and 
rest  and  eat.  Where  axes  are  needed,  there  are 
axes;  for  trenches  there  are  spades.  And  on 
the  firing-line  he  has  only  to  shoot.  The  hand  is 
there  with  the  ammunition.  And  let  him  be 
wounded,  and  instantly  the  great  father  becomes 
the  great  mother.  The  despatch  and  thorough- 
ness with  which  he  is  attended  are  limited  only 
by  the  capacity  of  the  service.  Not  here  neglect, 
with  idle  doctors  all  about.  Money  or  no 
money,  he  is  cared  for.  For  once  his  real  worth 
as  a  man  is  appreciated.  This  is  the  most  as- 

150 


tonishing  thing  about  the  present  war.  It  has 
made  of  the  miner,  the  mason,  the  factory-hand, 
the  street-car  conductor  an  asset  of  such  value 
that  for  the  first  time  it  has  become,  with  no 
opposition  even  from  the  capitalist  press,  the 
sacred  duty  of  society  to  see  not  only  that  he 
is  well  fed  and  well  clothed,  but  also  that  at  the 
public  expense  he  is  supplied  with  doctors  and 
nurses.  And  as  he  lingers  between  life  and 
death,  never  a  thought  of  who  is  to  meet  the  ex- 
penses of  the  burial,  never  the  hell  that  per- 
haps wife  and  children  will  starve.  The  great 
father  and  the  great  mother  will  provide  for 
them. 

Never  before  in  the  history  of  the  world,  I 
repeat,  has  there  been  such  a  practical  demon- 
stration of  the  Socialist  theory — the  theory  that 
somehow  or  other  the  individual  would  be  better 
off  and  society  better  off  if  the  latter  would  take 
charge  of  that  part  of  the  business  of  life  which 
is  necessary  to  the  efficiency  of  the  individual 
whether  in  peace  or  in  war. 

What  do  those  who  claim  that  Socialism  has 
fallen  understand  by  Socialism?  Because  the 
Socialists  of  Germany  and  France  and  England 
and  Eussia  failed  to  prevent  the  present  war  or, 
further,  at  the  first  shot  sprang  at  one  another's 

151 


THE  WOKLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

throat,  has  Socialism  therefore  failed?  Are 
there  still  intelligent  people  who  do  not  know 
that  the  prevention  of  war  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  essential  aim  of  Socialism,  but  is  sim- 
ply one  of  those  things  of  minor  importance 
which  Socialism  hopes  to  accomplish  in  its  great 
march?  It  would  be  strange  indeed  if  the  lead- 
ers of  a  great  modern  movement  that  had  for 
its  aim  the  reorganization  of  society  did  not  see 
that  the  real  objective  of  any  social  crusade 
worthy  of  the  name  is  the  socialization  of  the 
days  of  peace.  The  ending  of  war,  however  de- 
sirable, is  subordinate  to  this,  the  betterment 
of  the  normal  life.  For  who  does  not  see  that 
we  do  not  end  war  when  we  put  a  stop  to  war 
between  nations?  It  is  only  the  most  superfi- 
cial view  of  war  that  would  confine  its  meaning 
to  a  conflict  between  states.  Any  wide  social 
struggle  that  is  attended  in  its  natural  course 
by  great  suffering  is  war.  For  the  essence  of 
war  is  a  needless  competition,  whether  between 
states  or  corporations  or  individuals,  that  results 
in  wide-spread  suffering.  No  one  acquainted 
with  the  social  conditions  among  vast  masses  of 
the  population  of  almost  every  nation  can  fail  to 
be  aware  that  even  before  August  1, 1914,  some 
great  destroyer  was  abroad.  It  is  unnecessary 

152 


THE  FALL  OR  RISE  OF  SOCIALISM 

to  dwell  upon  these  things.  We  need,  in  pass- 
ing, to  pick  out  only  one  fact:  there  is  no  child 
labor  in  war. 

Imagine  what  it  must  be  like  to  thousands 
of  those  now  in  the  armies  of  Europe  to  wake 
in  the  morning  with  the  new  sensation  that  the 
day's  wants  have  been  provided  for,  to  have 
fall  into  their  laps,  as  though  the  heavens  had 
opened,  such  unfamiliar  comforts  as  mittens  and 
overcoats.  For  undoubtedly  there  are  in  these 
vast  hosts  countless  numbers  who  know  what 
it  is  to  walk  shabbily  clad  the  streets  of  Paris 
and  Berlin  and  London  and  Petrograd,  won- 
dering where  the  next  meal  is  to  come  from 
and  where  they  are  to  find  lodging  for  the  night, 
or  who,  falling  sick,  have  been  tormented  with 
the  thought  of  what  will  become  of  them.  There 
are  thousands  of  fathers,  doubtless,  who  will  hurl 
themselves  upon  the  bayonets  of  the  enemy  with 
less  anguish,  knowing  that,  if  they  fall,  their 
families  will  be  better  taken  care  of  than  if  they 
were  to  die  in  their  own  beds,  having  been 
brought  home  injured  from  the  field  or  the  mine 
or  the  workshop.  In  a  word,  there  are  in  these 
vast  hosts  that  face  one  another  in  Europe  to- 
day multitudes  who  will  find  conditions  of  life 
on  the  march  and  in  the  trenches  preferable  to 

153 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

those  from  which  they  were  mustered  to  the 
present  war. 

Was  there  ever  such  an  opportunity  for  ef- 
fective propaganda  as  that  which  the  present 
extraordinary  circumstances  have  supplied? 
Thick  within  the  lines  of  march,  among  the 
trenches,  in  the  hospitals,  are  those  who  under- 
stand and  can  explain  why  it  is  that  the  great 
father,  absent  in  time  of  peace,  is  present  in 
time  of  war.  And  there  will  be  leisure  between 
battles,  between  charges,  between  the  coming 
and  going  of  nurses,  for  discussion  of  this 
strange  anomaly.  And  we  may  be  sure  that 
there  will  be  many  a  hard-handed  philosopher  of 
the  trenches  who  will  make  clear  this  monstrous 
paradox.  And  with  what  freedom  of  speech, 
what  security  from  police  interference !  Mouths 
that  yesterday  were  muzzled  are  to-day  un- 
stopped. For  the  first  time  in  Europe  Socialism 
is  being  heard.  Certainly  for  the  first  time  it 
is  being  seen.  And  that  is  half  the  victory. 
Hitherto  it  has  been  necessary  for  the  mission- 
aries of  Socialism  to  present  a  theory.  They 
have  been  on  the  defensive  for  lack  of  a  prac- 
tical demonstration.  This  more  than  anything 
else  was  the  crying  weakness  of  their  cause. 
They  had  nothing  to  which  they  could  point  as 

154 


THE  FALL  OB  EISE  OF  SOCIALISM 

proof  that  their  theories  were  workable.  Just 
then,  as  though  some  high  god  had  lifted  the 
barriers  into  a  new  age,  the  very  state  that  had 
opposed  them  and  throttled  them  to  the  very 
limit  of  its  power  found  itself  demonstrating  the 
proof  of  their  claims. 

And  now,  with  this  great  experiment  in  actual 
operation,  it  will  be  easy  to  show  that  our  war 
system  is  centuries  ahead  of  our  peace  system, 
and  that  the  chief  reason  for  this  is  that  peace 
has  refused  to  learn  anything  from  war,  while 
war  has  listened  with  open  mind,  and  has  util- 
ized for  its  improvement  every  idea  that  peace 
has  brought  forth.  There  has  not  been  one  dis- 
covery or  invention  that  peace  has  added  to  her 
equipment  which  could  possibly  be  of  use  in 
war  that  has  not  been  appropriated  and,  if  nec- 
essary, altered  to  meet  the  new  requirements. 
From  the  simplest  sword  clear  on  up  to  the 
most  complex  dreadnought,  the  whole  intricate 
machinery  of  war  had  its  root  in  some  tool  or 
other  which  the  aboriginal  man  used  in  food- 
getting  or  in  his  early  industries.  War  differs 
from  peace,  therefore,  simply  in  its  receptive- 
ness  to  ideas.  Compared  with  modern  methods 
of  producing  and  distributing  the  necessaries 
of  life,  our  latest  methods  of  destroying  life 

155 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

are  vastly  more  scientific.  For  while  war  has 
absorbed  all  the  knowledge  and  adopted  all  the 
excellent  devices  of  peace,  that  one  vital  thing 
which  more  than  any  other  accounts  for  the 
conspicuous  success  of  martial  enterprises,  the 
harmonious  interworking  of  the  individual  with 
the  common  good,  has  thus  far  had  no  meaning 
to  humanity.  With  the  unbuckling  of  the  sword, 
the  great  society  has  disappeared. 

We  sometimes  think  that  the  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  war  is  the  killing  and  maim- 
ing of  men ;  but  it  is  evident  that  this  is  not  the 
real  distinction,  for  men  are  killed  and  maimed 
in  time  of  peace.  The  essential  and  the  one 
marked  difference  is  this,  that  during  war  a 
nation  is  a  society,  whereas  in  peace  it  is  an 
aggregate  of  individuals.  So  true  is  this,  in- 
deed, that  if  a  denizen  from  some  other  world, 
acquainted  with  our  normal  activities  during 
peace,  should  visit  us  now  when  we  are  at  war, 
he  would  have  difficulty  in  recognizing  in  this 
smoothly  moving,  harmonious  unit  the  disorgan- 
ized welter  of  yesterday.  Compared  with  the 
spirit  that  animates  a  society  at  war,  the  dis- 
integration that  inevitably  ensues  when  the 
sword  is  laid  aside  is  in  all  practical  respects 
like  the  dissolution  which  sets  in  in  the  body 

156 


THE  FALL  OE  RISE  OF  SOCIALISM 

of    a    man    when    the    spirit    has    taken    its 
flight. 

Conceive  of  the  immeasurable  bridge  over 
which,  when  the  present  war  is  done,  the  soldiers 
of  the  different  nations  will  be  obliged  to  pass. 
It  will  be  like  a  transit  from  one  world  to  an- 
other. All  those  splendid  ties  of  comradeship, 
that  extraordinary  devotion  to  the  common  wel- 
fare, the  almost  romantic  attachment  of  the  part 
to  the  whole,  will  dissolve  as  a  vapor.  That 
powerful  state  whose  energy  and  watchful  care 
were  everywhere  fathering  its  millions  will  also 
have  come  to  an  end.  And  in  its  place  there  will 
be  another  state  as  different  from  the  former  as 
one  thing  can  be  different  from  another.  The 
socialism  of  war  will  give  way  to  the  individ- 
ualism of  peace.  Society  will  become  unsocial. 
Once  the  rifles  are  stacked,  once  the  uniform  is 
laid  aside,  there  is  severed  that  intimate  bond 
between  father  and  children.  Instantly  the  re- 
lation between  the  individual  and  the  state 
becomes  one  of  cold  formality.  That  man  who 
in  the  battle-line  was  so  precious,  so  deserv- 
ing of  every  attention,  becomes  a  thing  of 
little  concern.  Henceforth  his  willingness  to 
serve  society  is  not  enough  to  guarantee  him 
even  his  daily  bread.  He  is  an  outcast  from  the 

157 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

great  home.  So  long  as  poverty  does  not  drive 
him  to  crime,  there  is  no  limit  to  the  misery  into 
which,  so  far  as  the  state  is  concerned,  this  sol- 
dier of  peace  may  not  wander.  Orphaned,  he 
must  now  shift  for  himself.  If  his  labor  is  re- 
quired in  some  other  part  of  the  country  than 
that  in  which  he  finds  himself,  there  is  no  free 
transportation  for  him  now,  as  he  sets  forth 
with  his  tools  in  his  hands,  as  there  was  yester- 
day when  he  girded  on  his  sword.  And  if  for 
any  reason  his  tools  become  useless,  he  must 
supply  himself  or  go  without.  And  the  gen- 
erals of  production,  the  Frenches,  the  Joffres, 
the  Hindenburgs,  and  the  grand  dukes  of  in- 
dustry, may  exploit  him  to  their  hearts '  content, 
may  dismiss  him  into  starvation.  The  great 
father  will  nowhere  interfere  except  it  be  to  pre- 
vent the  very  thing  which  in  war  he  insisted 
upon.  Let  it  be  voiced  in  any  of  the  cities  from 
which  the  present  armies  have  been  mustered 
that  in  peace,  too,  for  the  common  good,  private 
property  should  be  seized  as  it  was  seized  in 
war,  and  those  very  governments  which  led  in 
commandeering  the  machinery  of  peace  will  be 
the  first  to  stifle  the  suggestion  that  this  tried 
and  proved  policy  be  continued.  It  is  only  in 
war  that  the  state  has  independent  action;  in 

158 


THE  FALL  OE  RISE  OF  SOCIALISM 

peace  it  is  controlled  by  the  captains  of  industry. 
When  the  exigencies  of  war  require  the  drafting 
of  boys  of  sixteen  or  eighteen  years  of  age,  so- 
ciety becomes  alarmed;  but  there  is  no  alarm 
when  children  much  younger  are  drafted  into 
the  ranks  of  life-destroying  labor.  It  is  the  un- 
usual, not  the  unjust,  that  shocks  us. 

Sooner  or  later,  if  the  world  is  to  stand  and 
mankind  is  to  continue  to  advance,  Peace  will 
have  to  go  to  school  to  War  to  learn  the  art 
of  caring  for  men.  That  divine  altruism  which 
we  see  fusing  in  one  great  glow  the  armies  in 
Europe  to-day  will  somehow  have  to  be  blown 
abroad  through  the  infinite  to-morrows.  The 
millions  who  in  the  trenches  to-day  see  on  every 
hand  the  manifold  advantages  of  cooperation 
will  not  forever  tolerate  the  lack  of  this  fine 
thing  in  times  of  peace.  Not  forever  will  a 
mere  extension  of  boundaries  and  huge  indem- 
nities to  be  used  by  the  state  in  the  preparation 
for  further  wars  be  accepted  by  men  as  com- 
pensation for  the  bloodshed  and  ruin  of  homes. 
Something  more  personal  must  be  their  reward, 
something  that  will  lighten  the  burdens  of  their 
daily  life  and  infuse  through  their  daily  labor 
that  sense  of  comfort  and  that  rare  spirit  of 
co-partnership  which  is  the  sustaining  power  of 

159 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

the  armies  to-day.  When  these  millions  return, 
scarred  and  hardened,  from  the  great  adven- 
ture, from  destinies  which  their  own  hands  have 
shaped,  it  will  be  with  a  stirring  consciousness 
of  mighty  power,  of  ability  to  grapple  and  over- 
throw. Does  any  one  imagine  that  this  newly 
discovered  power  will  thereafter  lie  quiescent 
under  the  narrowing  conditions  that  obtained  in 
the  past? 

And  not  alone  in  the  rank  and  file  must  this 
inevitable  transformation  come  about.  Cap- 
tains of  industry  who  in  the  various  nations 
lead  the  vast  armies  of  labor  will  also,  sooner 
or  later,  under  the  urge  of  the  new  spirit,  find 
themselves  modeling  their  leadership  after  that 
of  the  great  men  who  to-day  command  the 
armed  millions  of  Europe.  Imagine  the  fine 
scorn  that  would  flash  across  the  face  of  any 
of  these  men  should  the  governments  they  are 
serving  offer  them  headquarters  floored  with 
expensive  rugs  and  hung  with  costly  tapestries 
and  filled  with  every  imaginable  dainty  of  food 
and  drink  such  as  the  monarchs  of  Asia  in  the 
long  ago  took  with  them  into  the  field  of  war. 
Imagine  the  indignation  which  such  a  proposi- 
tion would  arouse  should  it  be  explained,  as  it 
need  not  be  explained,  that  these  luxuries  were 

160 


THE  FALL  OR  EISE  OF  SOCIALISM 

to  be  provided  by  a  cutting  down  of  the  necessi- 
ties of  the  common  soldiers.  Enough  for  these 
modern  leaders  to  know  that  they  are  serving 
their  countries  and  helping  on  as  best  they  can 
the  heroic  work  in  which  their  nations  are  en- 
gaged. This  is  the  lesson  which  our  leaders  of 
peace  may  learn  from  the  leaders  of  war.  It 
is  evident  that  half  the  problems  of  life  would 
be  solved  if  something  of  this  rare  spirit  could 
find  its  way  into  the  mills  and  factories  of  the 
world.  For  call  it  Socialism  or  Christianity  or 
Christian  Socialism,  very  clearly  it  is  this  more 
than  anything  else  that  we  need  if  we  are  to  put 
an  end  to  the  barbarism  of  peace. 


161 


RECENTLY,  when  the  Eheims  cathedral 
was  bombarded,  a  cry  went  up  from  en- 
lightened lands  that  a  work  of  art  had  been  de- 
stroyed. Here,  if  we  only  realized  it,  was  the 
most  complete  indictment  of  the  church  that 
was  ever  made.  For  what  could  be  more  pain- 
ful to  a  person  or  an  institution  that  had  once 
been  a  power  in  the  world  than  to  be  utterly  for- 
gotten? Far  better  the  most  rabid  denuncia- 
tion. And  a  century  ago  this  proof  of  the  vi- 
tality of  the  church  would  not  have  been  lack- 
ing. Indeed,  a  decade  ago  the  falling  of  bombs 
upon  the  ancient  roof  would  have  called  forth 
at  least  a  sneer  from  free-thinkers  the  world 
over.  But  to-day  even  this  praise  is  denied 
her.  Amid  the  general  indignation,  even  the 
clergy  seem  to  have  forgotten  that  it  is  a  house 
of  God  that  has  suffered  disaster.  It  has  ceased 
even  to  be  incongruous  one  day  to  pray  to  Je- 
hovah for  success  for  the  German  guns  and 
the  next  to  turn  those  guns  upon  a  cathedral. 

165 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

Something  has  severed  the  connection  between 
this  building  and  the  high  heavens,  for  the  sigh 
of  the  world  is  only  that  a  work  of  art  has  been 
destroyed.  The  beauty  of  the  nave  has  out- 
lasted the  religion  of  the  altar.  Apollo  has  tri- 
umphed over  the  Christ. 

And  all  this  has  come  about  as  naturally  as 
ripe  fruit  falls  from  a  bough.  For  no  one  im- 
agines that  it  is  the  sudden  shock,  the  excite- 
ment of  war,  that  has  diverted  attention  from 
the  church.  That  which  we  have  witnessed  is 
simply  a  unique  registering  of  an  ancient  fact. 
For,  as  we  all  know,  it  was  during  years  of 
peace  that  the  spirit  of  the  church  was  bom- 
barded. That  which  fell  yesterday  upon  the 
heart  of  the  world  was  merely  the  beautiful 
stones  of  an  old  Christian  temple  that,  though 
we  were  only  half  aware  of  it,  had  long  ago 
taken  its  place  with  Karnak  and  the  Parthenon. 
It  is  this  splendid  isolation,  this  slow  conversion 
of  a  sectarian  house  of  worship  into  a  monu- 
ment of  art,  that  has  made  possible  the  world- 
wide regret  that  even  war  should  violate  this 
treasure  of  humanity.  At  last,  after  centuries 
as  a  shrine  of  a  narrow  doctrine,  the  old  build- 
ing has  become  a  thing  of  wide  human  concern. 
Shintoist  and  Hindu,  Mohammedan  and  Chris- 

166 


HAS  THE  CHURCH  COLLAPSED? 

tian,  all  these  may  now  in  unison  cry  out  as  from 
a  personal  wound. 

While  never  before,  probably,  was  such  a  tri- 
bute paid  to  art  in  its  general  character,  it  is 
the  profound  change  which  this  indicates  in  the 
Christian  world  that  surprises  us  most,  not  be- 
cause we  were  not  aware  that  a  profound  change 
had  taken  place,  but  because  now  for  the  first 
time  we  are  face  to  face  with  the  thing  that 
registers  infallibly  the  full  ebb  of  the  tide.  And 
very  clearly  it  is  not  an  ebb  from  one  shore, 
with  a  corresponding  flow  upon  another,  as  it 
invariably  is  with  the  movements  of  the  ocean, 
but  an  ebb  complete  and  world- wide.  And  only 
yesterday  Wordsworth  was  lamenting  the  loss 
of  the  classical  age.  Only  this  morning  it 
seems,  the  sighing  of  Swinburne 's  "Last  Ora- 
cle" was  in  our  ears:  "Thou  hast  conquered, 
Galilean."  And  here  almost  in  one  lightning 
flash  the  pagan  world  is  restored ! 

It  is  high  time  to  put  away  pretenses  and 
face  realities.  The  world's  New  Year's  day  is 
upon  us,  and  if  we  are  wise,  we  will  set  down 
in  our  inventory  only  those  things  which  we  ac- 
tually have  on  hand.  If  there  are  empty  boxes 
upon  our  shelves,  let  us  mark  them  empty  boxes. 
For,  though  we  seem  not  to  realize  it,  it  is  quite 

167 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

as  important  to  know  exactly  what  spiritual  re- 
sources we  can  count  on  in  peace  and  war  as 
it  is  to  know  exactly  what  military  equipment 
we  possess.  No  surprise  which  the  present  war 
has  caused  us  in  any  way  compares  with  that 
first  amazement  over  our  spiritual  unprepared- 
ness.  Ignorantly  or  deliberately  we  had  been 
deceived.  Time  and  again  we  had  been  told  by 
those  who  claimed  to  know  about  such  things 
that  our  moral  forces  were  amply  sufficient  to 
hold  back  the  deluge  that  has  overwhelmed  us. 
And  we  shall  be  deceived  again  if  we  do  not 
immediately  wipe  off  our  books  the  padded  fig- 
ures that  are  responsible  for  this  delusion. 

Let  us  understand  at  the  outset  that  it  is  no 
more  discreditable  for  an  institution  to  die  than 
it  is  for  a  man  to  die.  Only  when  death  has 
been  hastened  by  a  violation  of  the  higher  law 
does  the  event  become  a  proper  subject  for 
moralists.  Then  there  is  a  lesson  to  be  learned. 
The  ^mistakes  of  yesterday  become  the  guide- 
posts  of  to-day  and  the  wisdom  of  to-morrow. 
And  the  to-morrow  that  is  now  dawning  will 
need  all  the  wisdom  that  we  can  extract  from 
the  past. 

It  is  impossible  to  understand  the  undeniable 
vitality  of  primitive  Christianity  without  un- 

168 


HAS  THE  CHURCH  COLLAPSED? 

derstanding  something  of  the  early  world  into 
which  the  Christian  message  was  released.  For 
the  soil,  as  we  know,  is  half  the  harvest,  and 
unless  we  take  this  into  consideration,  we  shall 
be  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  shrinkage  which, 
unless  artificial  helps  are  employed,  must  in- 
evitably ensue. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  year  in  which  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  was  born  was  a  year  of  world-wide 
peace.  The  fact  is  significant  simply  because 
it  is  an  exception.  For  centuries  on  each  side 
of  this  little  oasis  stretches  an  interminable  hu- 
man waste.  The  Roman  state,  which  ever  witn 
unfailing  pride  traced  its  ancestry  back  to  Mars, 
the  war-god,  was  from  its  very  beginning  a 
military  power.  And  by  military  power  I  mean 
not  so  much  that  it  busied  itself  with  wars  as 
that  these  wars  were  the  natural  product  of  the 
tree  upon  which  they  grew.  And  if  in  this  par- 
ticular year  no  fruit  fell  to  the  ground,  and  if 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  slipped  unnoticed  into  the 
quiet  world,  it  by  no  means  indicates  that  the 
character  of  Rome  was  changing  or  that  her 
world-wide  organization  was  in  its  decline.  In- 
deed, we  may  truthfully  say  that  up  to  that 
time  her  sword  had  only  been  sharpened,  for 
it  was  afterward  that  Rome  acquired  that  char- 

169 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

acter  which  has  ever  since  been  inseparably  con- 
nected with  her  name. 

Yet  to  the  seer  capable  of  looking  into  the 
heart  of  things  the  hollow  into  which  the  Ro- 
man empire  finally  fell  was  already  there.  In 
every  bosom  was  an  emptiness,  in  every  life  a 
longing  toward  the  horizon.  It  was  into  this 
vacuum,  a  universal  yearning  for  the  lost  kind- 
ness of  the  world,  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  at  last 
found  His  way  and  began  His  work.  Nature 
has  a  way  of  restoring  her  equilibriums.  A 
rise  and  a  continued  high  temperature  in  sum- 
mer invariably  brings  about  a  reaction  which 
cools  the  atmosphere.  Similarly  in  the  moral 
world  a  denial  of  all  those  divine-human  quali- 
ties which  are  summed  up  in  the  word  love  is 
equally  certain  to  bring  about  their  affirmation. 
It  is  the  sure  operation  of  this  great  law  of 
nature  that  makes  it  possible  for  men  to  smile 
in  the  flames  of  martyrdom,  that  gives  to  the 
despairing  heart  in  the  darkest  of  ages  an  ab- 
solute assurance  of  an  eventual  dawn.  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  was  the  first  faint  flush  upon  the 
enormous  Roman  night.  If  millions  of  slaves 
turned  instinctively  toward  Him,  it  was  a  testi- 
mony not  only  to  the  character  of  Jesus,  but  also 
to  the  intense  darkness  which  surrounded  them. 

170 


HAS  THE  CHUECH  COLLAPSED! 

Whether  the  day  that  then  began  has  ever  fully 
come  or  whether,  if  it  does  come,  it  will  be  a 
Christian  day,  are  matters  which  for  the  pres- 
ent may  be  deferred.  What  we  now  seek  is  the 
meaning  of  that  early  message  and  the  secret 
of  its  undoubted  power. 

If  we  understand  heat,  we  need  give  little  at- 
tention to  the  study  of  cold;  if  we  know  the 
dark,  we  also  know  the  light.  In  like  manner, 
if  we  understand  the  character  of  the  Eoman 
state — shall  we  say  also  of  the  Eoman  people? 
— this  knowledge  will  be  of  incalculable  help  to 
an  understanding  of  Christianity,  for  the  latter 
was  a  reaction  against  the  former  as  a  rain  is 
a  reaction  against  a  drought.  If  we  have 
watched  the  effect  of  a  drought,  the  withering 
of  the  leaves,  the  dying  of  the  grass,  the  lowing 
of  the  herds,  we  may  shut  our  eyes  and  ears, 
when  told  that  a  rain  has  fallen,  and  know  in- 
stinctively what  has  happened. 

The  carpener  of  Nazareth  was  in  every  re- 
spect a  complete  antithesis  of  the  Caesars,  and 
that  which  He  gave  to  the  world  is  inherently 
as  opposed  to  that  which  Eome  gave  to  the 
world  as  one  thing  can  be  opposed  to  another. 
And  Jesus  Himself  recognized  this  when  He  de- 
clared, "Sender  therefore  unto  Caesar  the  things 

171 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

which  are  Caesar's;  and  unto  God  the  things 
that  are  God's."  If  this  means  anything,  it 
means  that  the  possession  of  those  things  which 
by  nature  belong  to  Caesar  presupposes  a  loss 
of  those  things  which  by  nature  belong  to  God ; 
in  other  words,  that  Caesar  is  on  one  side  and 
that  God  is  on  the  opposite  side.  If  the  church 
has  fallen  upon  evil  days,  the  reason  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  find.  Throughout  the  ages  churchmen 
have  tried  to  reconcile  in  theory  and  in  practice 
these  irreconcilables,  to  bridge  a  chasm  that  in 
its  very  nature  is  unbridgable  and  eternal. 
From  the  very  beginning  the  church  has  found 
herself  in  the  dilemma,  Caesar  or  God,  and  she 
has  held  firmly  to  both  horns.  And  holding  thus 
fast  to  a  contradiction,  she  has  died. 

The  Roman  empire  was  an  empire  of  solid 
possessions,  capable  of  being  measured  in 
square  miles.  And  the  armies  that  went  forth 
from  the  golden  mile-stone  in  the  Forum  had 
as  their  sole  aim  to  add  to  these  possessions, 
to  conquer  provinces,  to  increase  the  number 
of  subjects,  to  swell  the  revenues  of  the  state. 
And  the  marvelous  system  of  laws  which  Rome 
devised  was  wrought  out  for  the  one  purpose 
of  holding  these  vast  possessions  together.  In 
a  word,  from  her  feet  of  clay  to  her  head  of  gold, 

172 


HAS  THE  CHURCH  COLLAPSED? 

Eome  was  everywhere  and  always  a  material 
kingdom.  That  is  why  her  whole  spiritual  life 
was  a  borrowed  life.  While  other  nations  were 
at  prayer  or  were  uttering  sincere  aspirations 
in  marble  statues,  which  is  much  the  same  thing, 
Rome,  with  equal  fidelity  to  the  admonitions 
of  her  heart,  was  practising  arms  in  the  Campus 
Martius  or  loosing  her  eagles  to  fly  far  over  sea 
and  land.  If  the  Roman  ever  independently 
caught  a  gleam  of  the  spiritual  world,  it  was  as 
the  flash  of  a  searchlight  across  the  night,  seen 
one  moment,  then  forgotten.  Coming  in  Roman 
history  upon  an  aspiring  soul  like  Marcus  Aure- 
lius,  who,  though  a  Roman  emperor,  was  by 
nature  a  full  brother  of  the  Nazarene,  is  like 
coming  upon  a  crystal  in  an  interminable  ledge 
of  granite.  From  the  founding  of  the  city  to 
where  she  disappears  under  the  deluge  of  the 
barbarians,  Rome  was  essentially  a  denial  of  the 
spiritual  world. 

It  has  been  said  by  historians  that  much  of 
the  persecution  which  the  early  church  suffered 
at  the  hands  of  the  Caesars  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  church  already  was  active  in  politics  and 
was  furthering  a  movement  for  the  overthrow 
of  the  Roman  state.  By  which  doubtless  we  are 
to  understand  that  had  the  church  kept  out  of 

173 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

politics,  she  would  not  have  been  persecuted. 
We  may  infer  from  this  that,  in  the  opinion  of 
these  writers,  there  was  nothing  in  Christianity 
as  a  religion  to  incur  the  enmity  of  the  Caesars. 
Here  again  is  that  confusion  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  that  failure  to  perceive  that  not  only 
in  their  outer  activities,  but  in  their  essences, 
Christianity  and  Romanism  are  opposites.  And 
I  use  the  word  opposites  here  not  at  all  in  the 
loose  sense  in  which  it  is  sometimes  employed 
when,  for  instance,  it  is  said  that  a  gas  is  the 
opposite  of  a  solid.  Under  certain  conditions 
a  gas  may  become  a  solid,  but  it  is  evident  to 
any  one  who  knows  anything  at  all  of  the  na- 
ture of  Christianity  and  Romanism  that  in  no 
circumstances  can  the  one  possibly  become  the 
other.  The  essence  of  the  Roman  power  was 
outer  authority;  that  of  the  Christian  is  inner 
perception.  And  these  two  can  no  more  exist 
together  than  you  can  force  a  man  to  do  a  thing 
and  persuade  him  to  do  it  at  the  same  time. 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  came  to  restore  the  lost  kind- 
ness of  the  world,  and  to  do  this  He  was  obliged 
to  proceed  in  a  fashion  diametrically  opposite 
to  that  in  which  the  Caesars  proceeded.  The 
Caesars,  as  we  know,  surrounded  themselves 
with  all  the  paraphernalia  of  distinction,  pal- 

174 


HAS  THE  CHURCH  COLLAPSED? 

aces,  guards,  the  purple,  servile  men ;  for  these, 
as  is  well  known  the  world  over,  are  indispensa- 
ble to  marterial  power.  To  compete  with  Caesar 
in  any  of  these  things  or,  for  that  matter,  to 
express  the  opinion  that  there  were  or  ever 
had  been  poets  or  musicians  greater  than  Caesar, 
was  to  put  one's  life  in  peril.  And  always  the 
people  were  encouraged  to  deify  their  monarch, 
to  look  upon  Caesar  as  God.  And  the  more 
cruel,  the  more  bestial  he  became,  the  more  he 
was  exalted  to  heaven. 

Jesus  of  Nazareth,  on  the  other  hand,  not 
only  set  Himself  resolutely  against  all  this,  but 
in  the  very  nature  of  things  He  could  not  have 
done  otherwise.  For  the  sole  purpose  of  all 
this  is  to  beget  fear,  and  fear  is  the  opposite  of 
love.  And  therefore  He  consistently  put  be- 
hind Him  every  temptation  to  distinguish  Him- 
self in  any  way  from  the  common  man.  For 
to  encourage  servility  or  to  allow  it  would,  as 
He  knew,  weaken  His  message  by  transferring 
its  base  to  the  outer  world.  So  instead  of  es- 
tablishing Himself  in  a  capital,  He  preferred  to 
be  a  wanderer;  instead  of  a  palace,  He  chose 
rather  to  have  not  even  a  cottage;  instead  of 
guards,  He  would  not  allow  even  one  sword  to 
defend  Him;  instead  of  intercourse  with  the 

175 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

mighty  of  earth,  He  associated  with  fishermen 
and  with  outcasts,  to  show  doubtless  that  they 
were  outcasts  not  from  God,  but  from  Caesar, 
and  that  there  is  absolutely  nothing  in  outward 
poverty  inconsistent  with  inner  riches. 

Even  in  that  thing  in  which  He  was  ad- 
mittedly superior  to  those  about  Him,  His  good- 
ness, even  in  this  He  would  permit  no  compari- 
son that  would  elevate  Him.  "Why  callest 
thou  me  good?  There  is  none  good  but  one, 
that  is,  God."  And  always  when  He  speaks 
of  Himself,  it  is  as  the  son  of  man.  Never  does 
He  arrogate  to  Himself  that  which  He  denies  in 
quality  to  other  men.  The  claim  which  the 
church  has  made  and  the  emphasis  which  she 
has  since  laid  upon  the  claim  that  Jesus  is  the 
son  of  God  in  a  way  wholly  different  from  that 
in  which  an  elder  brother  is,  along  with  his 
younger  brothers,  a  son  of  the  same  father,  is 
Romanism  pure  and  simple,  and  was  undoubt- 
edly invented  and  has  since  been  adroitly  in- 
sisted upon  for  the  same  purpose  as  that  for 
which  a  similar  claim  was  made  for  the  Cae- 
sars, to  overawe  and  thus  lay  the  foundation 
for  outer  authority. 

How  degraded  a  thing  humanity  was  in  the 
ancient  world  is  nowhere  so  pathetically  exhib- 

176 


HAS  THE  CHURCH  COLLAPSED? 

ited  as  in  the  attitude  which  Borne  took  toward 
the  Christ.  No  point  of  contact  that  could  pos- 
sibly he  removed  has  been  left  between  men 
and  this  teacher  of  men.  All  those  splendid 
superstitions  with  which  they  had  surrounded 
the  birth  of  Romulus  are  draped  round  the  crib 
of  the  man  of  Nazareth.  As  in  the  former  case, 
the  human  father  is  gotten  rid  of  to  make  room 
for  Mars;  in  the  latter  the  same  thing  is  done 
to  make  room  for  Jehovah.  That  a  human  be- 
ing could  be  divine  was  to  the  Roman  inconceiv- 
able. And  in  the  Roman  we  can  understand  it. 
It  is  only  the  persistence  of  the  idea  to  the  pres- 
ent day  that  surprises  us.  Or,  rather,  it  would 
surprise  us  were  it  not  clear  that  almost  from 
the  first  century  the  objective  of  the  church  also 
has  been  empire. 

The  first  span,  then,  in  the  bridge  which  ever 
since  the  church  has  been  building  between 
Christ  and  Cassar,  is  this  denial  of  the  humanity 
of  Jesus. 

Among  spiritual  men,  John,  the  beloved  dis- 
ciple, has  been  generally  recognized  as  the  most 
perfect  reflection  of  the  Master.  And  his  ob- 
scuration by  Peter  is,  if  we  except  only  the  cruci- 
fixion of  Jesus,  unquestionably  the  greatest 
tragedy  of  the  early  church.  That  a  man  of 

177 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

such  marked  spiritual  endowments  as  the  au- 
thor of  the  fourth  gospel  should  have  been  rele- 
gated to  Patmos  while  the  building  of  the 
church,  which  was  supposed  to  be  a  spiritual  in- 
stitution, was  committed  to  a  man  like  Peter, 
is  one  of  those  incongruities  of  which  the  world 
is  full  and  with  which  the  human  mind  wrestles 
in  vain.  The  giving  of  the  keys  to  Peter  is  such 
a  reflection  upon  the  insight  of  Jesus  that  we 
are  inclined  to  regard  the  whole  story  as  a  for- 
gery, like  that  other  proved  forgery,  the  Dona- 
tion of  Constantine,  on  the  basis  of  which  the 
church  laid  claim  to  the  throne  of  the  empire. 
The  imagination  naturally  pictures  Peter  in  the 
Crusades.  With  what  fervor  would  he  have  ha- 
rangued the  Council  of  Clermont!  With  what 
zeal  would  he  have  gone  forth  with  Godfrey  and 
Tancred!  But  Jesus  of  Nazareth  would  not 
have  been  at  home  in  these  violent  movements. 
Nor  can  we  conceive  of  John  as  anything  but 
pained  by  this  general  drawing  of  the  sword  in 
the  name  of  the  Master.  But  Peter,  as  we  know, 
well  intentioned  though  he  doutbless  was,  even 
in  the  Master's  presence,  instinctively  lays  his 
hand  upon  his  hip.  And  it  is  of  Peter,  too,  that 
the  story  is  told  how,  forgetful  of  a  similar 
weakness  in  his  own  nature  and  of  Christ's  gen- 

178 


HAS  THE  CHUKCH  COLLAPSED? 

tleness  toward  this  failing,  he  struck  Ananias 
and  Sapphira  dead  for  lying.  That  Peter 
should  finally  have  gone  to  Borne,  as  tradition 
tells  us  he  did,  is  not  at  all  surprising.  For  by 
temperament  he  belongs  there,  just  as  Marcus 
Aurelius  belongs  among  the  disciples.  And  if 
the  church  was  to  be  what  it  became,  an  organi- 
zation with  world-wide  ambitions  such  as  kin- 
dled the  brains  of  the  Caesars,  no  one  of  the 
Apostles  was  so  fitted  to  be  its  founder  as  was 
he. 

In  the  character  of  Peter  we  have  the  second 
span  of  the  great  bridge  between  the  living  word 
of  Jesus  and  the  pageantry  of  the  Eternal  City. 
Henceforth  the  spiritual  kingdom  was  to  be  es- 
tablished upon  material  pillars;  inner  percep- 
tion was  to  give  way  to  outer  authority. 

If  any  one  familiar  with  Eoman  history  and 
the  Eoman  character  can  read  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  not  see  that  it  would  be  utterly  impos- 
sible for  Christianity  to  conquer  Rome,  there  is 
something  seriously  wrong  with  his  psychology. 
And  if  any  one  thinks  that  Christianity  ever 
did  conquer  Borne,  he  had  better  lay  side  by 
side  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  the  history 
of  the  Dark  Ages.  When  the  statement  is  made, 
as  it  is  frequently  made  by  historians,  that 

179 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

Christianity  succeeded  to  the  throne  of  the  Cse- 
sars,  it  is  obvious  that  the  author  is  using  the 
word  Christianity  not  at  all  in  the  sense  of  a 
spiritual  kingdom,  but  rather  to  express  those 
outer  characteristics  which,  owing  to  the  trans- 
forming influence  of  the  Roman  organization, 
have  since  become  known  as  Christianity.  To 
mistake  the  church  which  rose  on  the  ruins  of  the 
Roman  empire  for  the  church  which  the  man  of 
Nazareth  established  is  proof  positive  of  ethical 
and  spiritual  blindness.  And  to  maintain,  as 
some  do  who  readily  perceive  the  fallacy  of  this 
claim,  that  it  is  not  possible  to  enter  the  spirit- 
ual kingdom  except  through  a  material  organi- 
zation, indicates  a  myopia  different  from  the 
former  only  in  degree. 

But  the  time  had  now  come  when  it  was  nec- 
essary to  explain  the  new  gospel  to  the  wise, 
and  for  this  purpose  the  conversion  of  Saul  of 
Tarsus  was  most  opportune,  for  Saul  of  Tarsus 
was  a  philosopher.  He  was  more  than  that. 
By  birth  a  Hebrew,  by  adoption  a  Roman,  by 
education  a  lover  of  the  Greeks,  he  was  admira- 
bly equipped  to  translate  into  cosmopolitan 
terms  the  provincial  gospel  of  the  Nazarene. 
There  are  churchmen  to-day  who  regard  the 
apostle  Paul  as  the  father  of  modern  Christian- 

180 


HAS  THE  CHUECH  COLLAPSED? 

ity,  and  if  we  remember  that  it  is  for  "mod- 
ern" Christianity  the  claim  is  made,  it  must 
be  conceded  that  their  claim  is  not  altogether  un- 
founded. For  who  does  not  see  that  modern 
Christianity  is  a  philosophy,  that  that  thing 
which  in  the  hands  of  Jesus  was  a  religion,  a 
thing  to  be  lived,  became  in  the  hands  of  Paul 
a  thing  to  be  believed,  a  creed?  Henceforth,  in- 
stead of  the  clear  perception  of  the  spirit,  there 
was  to  be  substituted  ratiocination;  instead 
of  conscience,  there  was  to  be  intellect;  instead 
of  love  and  the  unity  of  love,  there  was  to  be 
disputation  and  a  calling  of  names.  By  intel- 
lectualizing  primitive  Christianity,  by  making 
abstruse  and  difficult  of  comprehension  that  sim- 
ple thing  which  the  most  childlike  can  under- 
stand, Paul  opened  the  gates  of  controversy  and 
casuistry.  The  church  had  now  only  to  go 
straight  on  to  come  upon  the  sword  that  was 
waiting  for  her,  and  to  enter  upon  that  cam- 
paign against  heresy  which  was  to  complete  the 
monstrous  perversion. 

What  I  say  here  of  Paul  and  what  I  said  be- 
fore of  Peter  is  said  with  no  intention  of  re- 
flecting upon  the  integrity  of  these  men.  The 
sacrifices  which  they  underwent  are  sufficient  to 
dispose  of  any  doubt  upon  this  point.  Yet,  as 

181 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

we  all  know,  if  good  intentions  were  all  that  are 
necessary,  the  world  would  be  a  very  different 
place  from  what  it  is.  Could  the  apostle  Paul 
have  foreseen  the  harvest  of  scholasticism,  the 
dissensions,  the  confusion  of  what  is  fundamen- 
tal with  what  is  adventitious,  that  were  to  spring 
up  from  his  labored  disquisitions,  he  would 
probably  have  gone  about  his  work  in  another 
way.  If  we  will  only  remember  that  philosophy 
is  speculative  and  that  religion  is  practical,  it 
will  become  at  once  apparent  how  easy  it  is  for 
religion  to  lose  its  vitality  by  being  confounded 
with  philosophy.  When  once  this  fog  has  set- 
tled down,  it  is  then  possible  for  churchmen  to 
discuss  such  questions  as  baptism,  transubstan- 
tiation,  and  the  nature  of  God  without  perceiv- 
ing that  they  long  ago  left  religion  behind. 

How  essential  to  the  work  begun  by  Peter  was 
the  work  accomplished  by  Paul  becomes  clear 
when  we  consider  the  nature  of  authority. 
While  truth  remains  cosmic,  and  its  power  over 
the  individual  is  the  result  of  inner  perception, 
it  is  impossible  to  establish  a  central  authority 
or  even  to  diffuse  this  authority  in  an  organiza- 
tion. For  men  who  have  truth  in  their  own 
hearts  or  who  realize  that  the  perception  of 
truth  is  a  matter  of  spiritual  unfolding,  will 

182 


HAS  THE  CHURCH  COLLAPSED? 

never  obey  either  a  man  or  an  organization. 
But  once  this  cosmic  character  of  truth  is  ob- 
scured, once  people  are  persuaded  that  the 
truth  of  religion  can  be  arrived  at  only  by  rea- 
son, from  that  moment  the  training  of  the  in- 
tellect becomes  all  important,  and  men  are 
looked  up  to  in  proportion  to  their  educational 
equipment.  From  this  time  on,  especially  to 
scholars,  it  becomes  absurd  that  carpenters  like 
Jesus  and  lens-grinders  like  Spinoza  and  shoe- 
makers like  Jacob  Boehme  should  know  any- 
thing of  the  higher  laws. 

With  the  impetus  toward  philosophy  which 
Christianity  received  from  the  apostle  Paul,  the 
way  was  opened  for  the  control  of  one  man  by 
another,  of  multitudes  by  a  few.  Church  coun- 
cils became  the  order  of  the  day.  The  ethical 
content  of  Christianity  was  scooped  out.  Doc- 
trine became  more  important  than  life.  Not 
righteousness,  but  heresy,  was  henceforth  the 
chief  concern  of  the  church.  From  this  time 
on  one  has  only  to  believe  and  to  obey  those 
who  formulate  the  belief.  The  spiritual  king- 
dom becomes  identified  with  the  church,  and  to 
enter  into  the  one,  a  man  has  only  to  become  a 
member  of  the  other. 

Here  is  a  Christianity,  if  by  any  stretch  of 
183 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

the  imagination  we  may  call  it  so,  that  the  Ro- 
man will  accept,  for  this  is  something  he  can 
use.  Here  is  fresh  blood  for  the  decrepit  limbs 
of  the  state,  youthful  energy  with  which  to  re- 
fill the  exhausted  channels  of  empire.  Once 
more  her  legions  may  go  forth,  and  the  barbar- 
ians of  the  North,  who  for  centuries  have  hurled 
their  might  against  the  empire  of  the  Caesars 
until  it  is  falling  in  fragments,  will  admit  this 
new  power  into  their  hearts,  though  it  is  virtu- 
ally identical  with  that  which  they  have  driven 
from  their  fields.  And  thus  Caesarism,  which 
had  gone  down,  will  rise  again  and  go  forth  in 
triumph  not  only  to  the  Rhine  and  to  the  border 
of  Scotland,  but  west  and  north  to  the  ends  of 
the  earth.  And  for  century  on  century  the  new 
empire  will  stand,  established  as  it  henceforth 
is  in  the  human  mind. 

This,  then,  is  the  third  span  in  the  great  bridge 
between  Christ  and  Caesar. 

But  a  fourth  was  to  be  built  before  the  end. 
It  was  never  quite  enough  for  Caesar  to  be  the 
head  of  the  Roman  organization  and  the  giver 
of  Roman  law ;  he  must  surround  himself  with 
all  those  extravagances  which  only  monarchs 
can  afford  and  which  seem  to  be  essential  to 
the  control  of  millions  of  people.  For  the  mil- 

184 


HAS  THE  CHURCH  COLLAPSED? 

lions  judge  of  power  by  the  show  it  makes,  and 
their  obedience  is  lavish  or  scant  as  this  out- 
ward display  is  prodigal  or  meager.  And 
therefore  it  is  a  matter  of  prime  importance  for 
Caesar  to  establish  himself  in  palaces,  to  wear 
robes  of  purple  and  gold,  to  environ  himself 
with  all  those  splendors  that  to  the  millions 
spell  power.  And  upon  entering  into  her  Ro- 
man inheritance  the  church  was  not  long  in  per- 
ceiving this.  And  forthwith  she  set  zealously 
to  work  to  supply  this  deficiency  which  the  Naza- 
rene  had  overlooked,  and  stone  by  stone  there 
began  to  rise  that  fourth  and  last  span  between 
Christ  and  Caesar.  With  an  organization  fash- 
ioned after  the  model  of  the  Roman  state,  and 
a  creed  capable  of  serving  all  the  purposes  of 
the  Roman  law,  she  had  now  only  to  put  on  the 
robes  of  magnificence  to  complete  the  transfor- 
mation. 

There  are  those  who  still  think  that  the  art 
movement  of  the  Renaissance  was  a  Christian 
movement;  and  as  proof  of  this  they  point  to 
the  fact  that  virtually  the  whole  of  the  vast 
energy  of  this  movement  was  spent  in  carving 
chalices,  in  painting  madonnas,  in  building  ca- 
thedrals. This  position  is  of  course  untenable. 
The  Renaissance  was,  as  we  know,  a  classical 

185 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

revival,  a  spirit  kindled  at  the  ancient  altars  of 
Greece  and  Rome.  And  though  the  fire  thus 
kindled  was  put  at  the  service  of  the  dignitaries 
of  the  church,  the  latter  fact  proves  nothing  as 
to  the  origin  of  the  inspiration  of  the  old  mas- 
ters. With  equal  justice  we  might  claim  that 
modern  art  is  a  capitalistic  movement  because 
architects  and  painters  are  to-day  frequently 
employed  by  the  beneficiaries  of  capitalism. 
Michelangelo  would  probably  have  been  as  de- 
lighted to  work  for  Pericles  as  he  was  to  work 
for  the  pope. 

He  who  thinks  that  wine  or  bread  or  cups  or 
altars  or  buildings  are  Christianity  or  any  part 
of  Christianity  is,  without  knowing  it,  inside  a 
cathedral,  and  his  ideas  of  Christianity  are  de- 
rived from  the  paraphernalia  which  he  sees 
about  him,  and  his  conception  of  the  man  of 
Nazareth  from  the  dead  figure  which  hangs  in 
the  window.  Art  has  a  place  of  its  own,  and  has 
nothing  to  gain  from  being  confounded  with  re- 
ligion. On  the  other  hand,  religion  has  much 
to  lose  from  being  confounded  with  art.  The 
purpose  of  art  is  to  refine  and  ennoble  the  sen- 
timents, the  purpose  of  religion  to  refine  and 
ennoble  conduct.  Any  confusion  of  these  aims 
has  a  tendency  to  make  religion  theoretical;  to 

186 


HAS  THE  CHURCH  COLLAPSED? 

make  unnecessary  the  transmutation  of  noble 
sentiments  into  deeds. 

With  the  rise  of  the  Protestant  Reformation, 
which  was  the  expression  of  the  Renaissance  in 
the  North,  the  world  for  the  first  time  awakened 
to  the  fact  that  the  church  had  undergone  a 
radical  transformation,  and  that  the  purpose  of 
withholding  the  Bible  from  the  people,  as  it  had 
been  withheld  for  centuries,  was  to  prevent  the 
change  from  becoming  known.  More  and  more 
clearly  it  was  being  seen  that  the  church  was 
in  reality  the  Roman  empire  resurrected  and 
wielding  its  authority  not  now  solely  from  the 
Seven  Hills,  but  also  from  the  throne  of  the 
hereafter.  The  assault  which  then  began  under 
the  leadership  of  "Wycliffe,  Huss,  Luther,  Cal- 
vin, and  others,  while  carried  on  with  a  fervor 
worthy  of  the  ancient  prophets,  had  as  its  aim 
not  the  complete  divorcement  of  Christianity 
and  Caesarism,  but  the  overthrow  of  the  Roman 
organization,  with  its  centralized,  imperial  au- 
thority. That  organization  itself,  even  without 
this  centralized  authority,  was  no  part  of  Chris- 
tianity seems  not  to  have  been  perceived,  for  on 
the  ruins  of  the  Roman  church  in  the  North  rose 
organizations  not  utterly  dissimilar.  For  cen- 
turies still  the  idea  was  to  prevail  that  the  spirit- 

187 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

ual  kingdom  is  not  wholly  spiritual,  that  inner 
perception  must  somehow  be  squared  with  outer 
authority.  Naturally,  therefore,  the  creed  had 
to  be  maintained  or  the  church  as  a  material  or- 
ganization would  disappear.  For  it  would  then 
be  possible  for  a  man  to  become  a  Christian  by 
practising  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  not 
as  now  by  accepting  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  or 
those  other  matters  of  profession  which  virtu- 
ally all  the  churches  still  insist  are  of  divine 
origin. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  tide  has  gone  out 
and  left  the  church  utterly  powerless;  that  the 
whole  vesture  of  CaBsarism  with  which  she  over- 
awed the  millions  has  been  stripped  off  piece  by 
piece ;  that  art  has  become  art,  still  capable  of 
arousing  men  to  its  defense;  that  philosophy 
has  become  philosophy,  honorably  installed  in 
our  educational  system;  that  organization  is 
still  active  in  politics  and  industry;  and  that 
the  church  is  nothing?  Is  it  not  a  comment 
upon  the  hollowness  of  her  pretensions  that  as 
civilization  has  advanced  the  church  had  re- 
ceded and  that  annually  her  remaining  millions 
ooze  away  and  are  lost  in  secular  affairs! 

All  this  would  be  of  little  moment  and  would 
merit  the  unconcern  with  which  it  is  popularly 

188 


HAS  THE  CHUECH  COLLAPSED? 

regarded  were  there  not  a  tremendously  serious 
side  to  the  matter.  For  nineteen  centuries  so- 
ciety has  left  in  the  hands  of  the  church  the  di- 
rection of  the  moral  forces  of  the  world.  And 
now,  after  all  these  centuries,  we  find  ourselves 
falling  into  the  same  moral  vacuum  into  which 
the  Eoman  empire  fell.  After  eighteen  hundred 
years  it  is  as  easy  for  men  to  thrust  bayonets 
into  one  another  as  it  was  in  the  heathen  world. 
Is  it  not  apparent  that  the  church  has  collapsed? 


189 


THE  COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 


vm 

THE   COSMIC   MEANING   OF   WOMAN 

WHATEVER  may  have  been  hitherto  our 
idea  of  " woman's  place,"  never  again, 
or  at  least  not  until  the  present  war  has 
been  forgotten,  will  it  be  possible  seriously  to 
state  to  a  serious  audience  that  the  participa- 
tion of  woman  in  the  affairs  of  the  world  would 
work  harm  to  society.  Other  arguments  may 
survive,  other  fears  may  be  played  upon,  but 
this  one  has  received  its  death-blow.  The  in- 
jury which  society  was  to  receive  at  the  hands 
of  woman  has  been  anticipated  by  the  hands 
of  man.  Hereafter,  when  the  probable  loss  to 
the  world  from  the  feminization  of  society  is 
under  debate,  man  at  least  will  have  noth- 
ing to  say.  And  among  women,  those  who  in 
the  past  have  suffered  from  this  fear  and  have 
purposely  shared  their  anxiety  with  others,  will, 
if  they  are  wise,  devote  that  energy  which  they 
have  heretofore  expended  in  protecting  society 
from  woman,  to  protecting  woman  from  society. 

193 


For  hencefortH  assuredly  it  is  society,  not 
woman,  that  is  the  menace.  In  one  night  our 
solicitude  has  faced  about.  What  was  it  in 
woman  that  we  feared?  Was  it  the  softening 
of  our  civilization?  Upon  this  score  at  least  the 
war  has  reassured  us. 

If  ever  there  were  reasons  why  woman  should 
remain  aloof  from  the  world  and  develop  in  her 
own  sphere  what  is  called  her  "higher  nature,*' 
to-day  those  reasons  are  multiplied  by  ten. 
And  undoubtedly  they  will  be  seized  upon.  For 
the  future,  we  may  depend  upon  it,  more  than 
ever  will  the  home  be  glorified.  With  vastly 
more  weight  than  heretofore  it  will  be  urged 
that  the  refined  nature  of  woman  has  no  place 
in  a  world  given  over  to  savagery,  that  she  has 
everything  to  lose  and  nothing  to  gain ;  for  what 
has  such  a  society  to  give?  Why,  it  will  be 
asked,  should  woman  bring  her  purity  and  vir- 
gin emotion  to  a  world  that  has  no  appreciation 
of  these  things?  Life  that  has  suddenly  be- 
come infinitely  complex,  the  opponents  of  the 
world  woman  will  meet  more  determinedly  than 
ever  before  by  a  retreat  from  its  responsibili- 
ties, by  the  plea  that  for  woman  the  higher  re- 
sponsibilities lie  more  than  ever  in  the  home. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  millions  of  women  who 
194 


THE  COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 

heretofore  have  shown  no  interest  either  in 
feminism  or  in  the  franchise,  but  who  have  been 
content  about  their  households,  the  present  war 
has  already  come  as  the  cry  of  a  drowning  man 
piercing  the  darkness  of  the  night.  As  never 
before,  the  doorways  of  the  world  are  filled  with 
women,  perplexed,  silent,  suffering,  horrified, 
now  looking  toward  Belgium  and  Poland  and 
now  harkening  back  in  their  rooms  to  the  voices 
of  children  at  play.  Will  it  ever  be  possible 
again  in  any  part  of  the  world  for  a  woman  to 
bring  forth  a  child  and  not  question  if  her  pains 
are  worth  while  T  Never  since  the  beginning  of 
time  has  life's  appalling  contradiction  so  torn 
the  heart  of  woman  as  it  is  tearing  it  to-day. 
To  these  undoubtedly  it  has  become  a  serious 
problem,  where  the  "higher  responsibility"  lies. 
And  to  this  problem  nothing  less  than  life  can 
give  answer.  Trained  to  harken  the  need  of 
the  home,  what  will  she  do  now  that  the  world  is 
calling?  Yesterday  it  was  easy  to  think  of  the 
home  and  the  world  as  distinct;  easy  for  a 
woman  to  quiet  her  conscience  with  the  thought 
of  household  duties  well  performed.  To-day  of 
how  little  consequence  is  it  that  the  linen  is  clean 
and  the  rooms  in  order !  To-day  the  home  and 
the  world  are  one,  caught  up  by  the  same  storm 

195 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

and  blown  together  toward  the  same  fate. 
Whatever  may  happen  hereafter,  never  again 
will  it  be  possible  to  think  of  man  and  woman 
as  other  than  human  beings  meeting  the  comedy 
and  tragedy  of  life  hand  in  hand  as  one. 

And  yet  when  we  consider  it  less  profoundly, 
when  we  allow  only  our  eyes  to  rove  over  the 
event,  when  before  was  the  threshold  so  con- 
spicuously the  dividing  line  between  man's 
world  and  woman's  world?  Suddenly  over  Eu- 
rope, as  over  a  vast  field  with  millions  of  hu- 
man beings  at  work  and  at  play  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  common  humanity,  a  great  Hand  has 
come  down  upon  the  nations  and  separated  the 
sexes,  moving  the  male  to  the  borders  and  leav- 
ing the  female  in  the  interiors.  On  one  side  of 
a  chasm,  rifted  as  by  an  earthquake  and  unfath- 
omable almost  as  life  itself,  are  fathers  and  hus- 
bands and  brothers ;  on  the  other,  mothers  and 
wives  and  sisters.  And  but  yesterday  in  the 
streets  of  the  cities,  in  the  fields  of  labor,  in  the 
places  of  merriment,  man  and  woman  were  be- 
coming one.  Their  occupations  were  blending, 
their  lives  were  coalescing  and  eliciting  more 
and  more  respect  and  understanding.  To-day, 
as  at  the  stroke  of  a  sword,  they  are  two,  cos- 
mically  two,  with  vast  seas  between  them.  The 

196 


THE  COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 

gradual  knitting  together  of  the  ages  is  torn 
asunder.  Like  an  old  scar  the  sex  line  has  re- 
appeared, and  there  is  no  sanctuary  even  in  the 
home.  From  a  being  clothed  yesterday  with 
chivalry  and  touching  woman's  hand  with  rever- 
ence, man  has  suddenly  dropped  back  into  the 
jungle  and  is  abroad  about  his  ancient  business 
of  killing ;  while,  as  in  the  early  days  of  the  race, 
woman  is  flying  from  the  ravager,  or  is  about 
the  house  tending  her  orphans,  or  in  the  fields 
wondering  why,  watching  the  horizon,  anxious 
how  the  battle  is  going,  or  kneeling  in  the  wake 
of  the  storm,  binding  up  her  wounded  lord. 

It  is  particularly  important  just  now  when 
the  mighty  organism  of  life  is  being  torn  apart, 
to  consider  the  respective  natures  of  man  and 
woman  and  the  parts  which  obviously  they  were 
intended  to  play  in  the  building  of  the  world. 
For  very  clearly  a  mistake  has  been  made. 
Very  clearly,  as  in  the  days  of  Babel,  something 
has  happened  that  has  brought  inexplicable  con- 
fusion upon  the  builders,  and  in  the  medley  and 
the  conflict  centuries  are  falling  down  upon  us. 
And  in  our  search  for  the  cause  of  this  mistake 
we  shall  do  well  not  hastily  to  dismiss,  as  some- 
thing that  has  no  connection  with  the  catas- 
trophe, the  relation  of  man  and  woman.  For 

197 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

possibly  it  is  here,  covered  up  under  the  familiar 
common-places  of  life,  and  not,  as  we  have  im- 
agined, in  the  relation  of  Austria  and  Serbia  or 
of  Germany  and  England,  that  the  real  trouble 
lies. 

And  apart  from  the  gnawing  hunger  to  know 
how  it  has  come  about  that  we  plant  only  to 
burn,  and  build  only  to  destroy,  and  bring  forth 
only  to  put  to  the  bayonet,  no  one  with  a  bent  for 
prophecy  or  with  a  natural  human  curiosity  for 
what  in  the  way  of  social  changes  to-morrow 
may  have  in  store  for  us,  can  afford  on  the  eve 
of  such  changes  to  give  to  woman  a  dismissing 
glance.  For,  dissected  and  weighed,  carded  and 
catalogued  as  she  has  been  by  the  masters  of 
science,  and  discussed,  one  would  say,  from 
every  angle  of  the  circle,  woman  remains,  as  her 
recent  coming  out  into  the  world  remains,  the 
most  potential  phenomenon  of  the  present  time. 
What  the  white  man,  landing  upon  the  shores  of 
the  New  World,  was  to  the  Indian,  that  to  the 
present  age  is  woman.  What  is  she,  why  is  she 
crossing  her  ancient  boundary,  and  what  is  her 
significance  in  the  thick  darkness  that  has  come 
over  us!  These  are  questions  to  which  no  hu- 
man being,  alive  to  the  portentous  events  that 
storm  about  us,  dare  shut  his  ears. 

198 


THE  COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 

The  sex  question,  as  one  phase  of  the  woman 
problem  is  sometimes  called,  I  shall  reserve  for 
a  subsequent  chapter.  In  this  one  it  is  the  femi- 
nine quality  alone  that  concerns  us,  the  spiritual 
difference — if  there  be  such  a  difference — be- 
tween the  male  and  the  female,  and  the  conclu- 
sions likely  to  affect  the  structure  of  future  so- 
ciety that  may  fairly  be  drawn  therefrom. 
That  social  revolutions  of  deep  significance  are 
upon  us,  there  can  be  no  question ;  what  they  will 
be  and  what  changes  they  will  bring  about  de- 
pends very  largely  upon  what  in  her  deeper  na- 
ture woman  really  is. 

There  is  a  story  far  back  in  the  annals  of 
early  Eome  that  I  wish  to  take  out  of  the  dust 
that  has  gathered  over  it  and  lay  upon  this  page, 
not  only  because  of  the  light  which,  better  than 
any  other  story  I  know  of  in  history,  it  throws 
upon  the  real  nature  of  man  and  woman,  but 
also  because  of  its  application  to  the  present 
crisis  and  beyond  the  present  crisis  to  the  social 
life  of  to-morrow.  It  is  the  well-known  story  of 
the  Sabine  women.  For  the  benefit  of  those 
who  have  forgotten  it,  I  relate  it  again. 

Shortly  after  the  founding  of  Eome  a  festival 
was  held  to  which  the  peoples  of  the  neighbor- 
ing villages  were  invited.  Toward  the  close  of 

199 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

this  gala  occasion  the  men  of  Rome,  among 
whom  there  was  a  shortage  of  women,  seized 
and  made  off  with  the  daughters  of  the  visiting 
peoples.  As  was  to  be  expected,  strife  shortly 
afterwards  ensued  between  the  outraged  vil- 
lagers and  the  new  city  upon  the  Tiber.  In  this 
warfare,  the  Sabines  at  first  took  no  part. 
Later,  however,  they  too  attacked  Rome.  While 
the  fortune  of  this  later  assault  hung  in  the 
balance,  the  Romans  at  first  being  driven  back 
and  then  the  Sabines,  the  daughters  of  the  lat- 
ter, who  had  now  become  the  wives  of  the 
Romans,  rushed  in  between  the  opposing  forces 
and  begged  their  fathers  and  brothers  on  the  one 
hand  and  their  husbands  on  the  other  to  desist. 
Unable  to  withstand  so  touching  an  appeal,  the 
warring  peoples  put  aside  their  hatred  and  made 
peace.  More  than  this,  the  Sabines  and  the 
Romans  united  and  became  one,  their  kings, 
Titus  Tatius  and  Romulus,  thereafter  sharing 
equally  in  the  government. 

Let  us  rid  ourselves  if  we  can  of  our  famili- 
arity with  those  things  with  which  we  have 
grown  up  and  if  possible  look  at  them  with  an 
eye,  let  us  say,  of  a  being  that  has  just  alighted 
upon  the  grass  of  this  earth  from  the  slopes  of 
some  neighboring  planet.  And  going  back  in 

200 


THE  COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 

time,  let  us  take  our  stand  on  the  top  of  the 
Capitoline  Hill  when  the  event  we  have  just  re- 
lated was  taking  place. 

The  first  thing  that  catches  our  attention  is  of 
course  the  conflict  that  is  going  on  between 
groups  of  persons  who  are  so  alike  in  structure 
and  appearance  as  to  be  indistinguishable. 
Presently  we  notice1,  hurrying  out  from  the 
homes  of  the  city  and  making  their  way  in  be- 
tween the  combatants,  another  group  of  beings 
somewhat  different  from  the  others.  Their  ap- 
pearance is  different  and  for  some  reason  they 
are  not  in  the  conflict.  And  these  outward  dif- 
ferences, as  we  see  when  the  new  arrivals  come 
between  the  warring  factions,  are  matched  by 
other  differences  equally  conspicuous.  For 
though  they  are  now  in  the  thick  of  the  fray, 
they  do  not  fight,  but  with  voices  and  uplifted 
hands  seek  to  put  an  end  to  the  strife. 

Strange  that  beings  of  such  marked  resem- 
blance as  those  that  fight  and  these  that  plead 
should  seek  their  ends  in  such  strikingly  dissimi- 
lar fashion.  And  this  strange  phenomenon  be- 
comes even  stranger  when  we  learn,  as  we  do 
from  the  discussion  which  follows,  that  it  is  the 
long-haired  ones,  who  have  taken  no  part  in  the 
battle,  that  are  the  injured  ones,  the  violation  of 

201 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

whose  rights  has  brought  on  the  fury  and  the 
bloodshed.  And  yet,  see  them  how,  forgetful  of 
themselves,  they  take  the  hands  or  cling  about 
the  necks  of  those  who  are  still  reluctant  to 
yield.  Clearly  these  are  beings  of  a  different 
sort,  for  the  one  is  weak  and  the  other  is  strong, 
and  yet  the  weaker  is  stronger  than  the  strong. 
For  with  a  power  born  neither  of  arms  nor  of 
arguments,  the  newcomer  from  the  homes  of  the 
city  has  turned  war  into  peace  and  enmity  into 
friendship. 

From  what  we  have  seen  it  is  evident  that  the 
difference  between  these  two  beings  goes  deeper 
than  dress,  deeper  than  laws,  deeper  even  than 
form.  And  we  need  not  go  far  from  Rome,  we 
need  but  walk  out  into  the  fields  about  the  city, 
where  the  herds  and  flocks  are  grazing  or,  fur- 
ther, into  the  wilderness  where  the  taming  hand 
of  man  has  never  been,  to  perceive  that  the  dif- 
ference is  a  cosmic  difference,  that  the  same 
bellicose  quality  which  we  saw  in  the  groups 
fighting  upon  the  hillside  is  characteristic  of  the 
protector  in  every  species  whether  human,  beast, 
or  bird,  and  that  the  gentler  quality  of  the  home- 
maker  is  likewise  manifested  upon  every  plane 
of  nature. 

Into  the  causes  of  this  difference  it  is  not 
202 


THE  COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 

necessary  here  to  enter,  for  it  is  with  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  fact  that  we  have  here  chiefly  to  do. 
Enough  to  know  that  whether  we  consider  him 
far  back  in  the  cosmic  light  or  in  the  fields  of 
his  more  recent  evolution,  man  is  the  representa- 
tive of  what,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  we  may 
call  the  outer  world.  And  woman,  traveling  a 
circle  horizontally,  shall  we  say,  smaller  than 
man's,  is  equally  the  representative  of  what  we 
may  call  the  inner  world. 

Or  looking  at  them  from  another  angle,  we 
see  that  from  the  very  beginning  man  has  been 
the  conqueror.  It  was  man  that  met  the  wild 
beast,  chose  to  meet  the  wild  beast,  for  the  exer- 
cise of  those  qualities  which  for  centuries  had 
been  developed  in  protecting  the  mother  when 
helpless  with  her  young.  Here  for  a  moment 
the  two  planets  touch  with  a  small  one  between 
them,  then  swing  on  round — the  one,  we  may 
say,  to  the  right ;  the  other,  to  the  left :  the  one 
toward  conquest  for  food,  the  other  toward  a 
gentler,  less  strenuous  life,  centering  in  her 
child.  And  traveling  these  two  circles  through 
the  ages,  the  one  a  conqueror,  the  other  a  con- 
server,  the  one  a  slayer  or  an  enslaver  of  wild 
beasts  and  wild  men  and  later  of  the  forces  of 
nature;  the  other,  ministering  always  to  her 

203 


THE  WOKLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

helpless  infant  and  working  intermittently  with 
those  things  the  mastery  of  which  required  at 
her  hands  no  bloodshed — clay  for  vessels  and 
reeds  for  baskets  and  fibers  or  the  skins  of  man- 
slain  beasts  for  clothing — these  two  beings  with 
the  passing  of  the  centuries  grew  naturally,  in- 
evitably into  what  we  have  just  seen  them  on  the 
Capitoline  Hill,  into  what  essentially  they  re- 
main to-day. 

In  a  word,  as  far  back  as  we  can  trace  it,  Life 
is  manifesting  itself  more  and  more  in  two  forms 
and  is  carefully  gathering  about  these  two 
forms  such  activities  and  occupations  as  will  de- 
velop to  the  best  advantage  those  qualities 
which  she  is  persistently  seeking  to  develop :  in 
the  male,  power;  in  the  female,  love. 

Whatever  conclusion  with  regard  to  the  na- 
ture of  man  and  woman  science  may  have  come 
to  that  darkens  the  splendor  of  this  great  truth, 
is  as  sure  of  oblivion  to-morrow  as  mists  are 
sure  to  be  dissipated  at  the  rising  of  the  sun. 
Beside  the  so-called  "facts"  of  science  which 
too  often  are  but  side  excursions  in  support  of 
some  preconceived  notion  of  social  policy  rather 
than  an  •extension  of  the  main  path  toward 
truth,  I  lay  the  mighty  fact  of  experience.  Is 
there  a  man  living,  is  there  even  a  boy,  who  does 

204 


THE  COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 

not  know  from  what  he  has  already  learned  of 
life,  from  what  he  has  seen  in  his  own  home, 
that  in  this  story  of  the  Sabines,  now  more  than 
twenty-five  hundred  years  old,  is  revealed  as 
through  a  magic  glass  the  real  nature  of  man 
and  the  real  nature  of  woman?  Is  there  any- 
where in  the  world  a  home  in  which  the  situation 
presented  in  this  story  has  not  at  some  time  or 
other  been  duplicated:  the  males  quarreling 
and  the  females  intervening  for  peace?  Or 
looking  out  of  the  window,  or  passing  along  the 
street  of  town  or  city,  who  has  not  come  upon 
further  proofs  that  man  is  primarily  the  em- 
bodiment of  power  and  woman  of  love? 

Here,  then,  we  have  issuing  straight  out  of 
the  cosmos  an  ultimate  word  upon  the  subject 
of  the  relation  of  man  and  woman  in  the  world, 
a  voice  that  goes  through  the  woman  question 
like  a  clearing  wind.  Have  we  heeded  this 
voice  ?  Or  in  the  building  of  civilization  are  we 
at  work  beyond  the  cosmos,  and  may  therefore 
cosmic  pronouncements  be  disregarded?  That 
we  have  disregarded  them  and  harkened  rather 
to  biology,  concerned  solely  with  the  develop- 
ment of  physical  form,  and  to  economics  which 
has  run  between  these  mates  the  artificial  line 
of  loaf-winner  and  loaf-kneader,  there  can  be 

205 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

no  doubt.  "Let  woman  keep  silence  in  the 
churches,"  the  order  of  the  apostle  to  the  Gen- 
tiles, has  been  adopted  as  a  rule  throughout  so- 
ciety. And  what  has  been  the  result? 

Not  one  thinker,  probably  not  one  man  or 
woman  of  intelligence  the  world  over,  can  be 
found  who  would  not  say  offhand  that  the  world 
needs  something.  The  difference  of  opinion 
among  them  is  simply  with  regard  to  what  that 
something  is.  Statesmen  everywhere  are  look- 
ing into  the  loose  places  of  the  law.  Teachers 
are  considering  what  alterations  should  be  made 
in  the  educational  system.  Even  masters  of  in- 
dustry, who  undoubtedly  would  profit  most  from 
the  continuation  of  the  existing  order,  are  will- 
ing to  meet  half  way  the  world  clamor  for  a 
radical  overhauling  of  the  relations  between 
Capital  and  Labor.  From  pole  to  pole,  from 
the  very  springs  of  life,  the  agonizing  cry  goes 
up  that  civilization  has  failed,  that  humanity 
has  lost  its  way.  The  deep  realization  of  this 
that  has  been  thrust  into  our  hearts  on  the 
points  of  bayonets  is  the  one  clear  gleam  amid 
the  universal  darkness  that  has  fallen.  At  last 
after  centuries  of  word  discussion  and  sword 
discussion,  there  has  come  over  conflicting  races 
and  classes  a  divine  unanimity.  Henceforth  we 

206 


THE  COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 

are  relieved  of  the  necessity  of  debating  the 
question  whether  there  is  really  a  need  of  any- 
thing and  may  hereafter  concentrate  our 
thoughts  upon  ascertaining  what  that  something 
is. 

Probably  the  whole  world  would  agree  to  this 
also,  that  if  civilization  has  failed,  it  has  failed 
because  it  has  become  inhuman ;  the  sanctity  of 
life  has  disappeared.  There  are  those  who 
have  known  this  for  years,  though  apparently  to 
the  mass  of  men  or  rather,  let  us  say,  to  the 
blind  leaders  of  men,  it  has  taken  a  world 
butchery  to  disclose  it.  In  the  present  war  we 
have  on  a  universal  scale  a  display  of  that  slow 
but  sure  vengeance  which  we  sometimes  see 
working  out  in  the  case  of  a  hard  landlord  who 
does  not  understand  why  he  should  provide  fire- 
escapes  for  his  tenants  until  one  day  he  hears 
that  fire  has  broken  out  and  that  his  own  family 
has  perished.  Within  the  past  few  months  a 
look  of  horror  has  come  over  the  faces  of  the 
powerful  leaders  of  men  as  though  what  is  hap- 
pening were  something  wholly  unexpected,  a  re- 
versal of  the  enginery  of  civilization.  Instead, 
as  any  one  who  has  read  even  the  newspapers 
during  the  past  decade  or  so  should  be  able  at 
once  to  see,  this  universal  butchery  of  men  was 

207 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

the  inevitable  next  station  on  the  main  line 
exactly  as  the  stockyards  in  Chicago,  that 
slaughter  house  of  the  nation,  is  the  culmination 
of  the  animal  killing  that  was  formerly  diffused 
throughout  the  country. 

Let  those  who  are  appalled  at  this  sudden  con- 
centration of  the  business  of  murder  look  over 
the  statistics  of  the  unnecessary  loss  of  life  on 
the  railroads  and  in  the  mines  and  workshops  of 
the  world.  Let  those  whose  hearts  sink  when 
they  read  of  the  thousands  of  families  turned 
out  of  their  homes  by  war,  compare  in  this  re- 
spect the  record  of  the  days  of  peace.  In  New 
York  City  alone  every  year  that  passes  thou- 
sands of  families  are  dispossessed  by  landlords, 
turned  out  under  the  elements  to  sit  upon  the 
sidewalk  with  the  fragments  of  broken  homes 
while  the  city  unconcerned  goes  on  about  its 
daily  business.  And  let  those  who  find  it  diffi- 
cult to  sleep  at  night  because  of  visions  of  men, 
women,  and  children  in  destitution  flying  to- 
ward the  cities  of  England  from  this  sudden 
storm  of  savagery,  let  these  good  people  read 
the  story,  the  understory  of  the  working  classes 
of  England  itself  during  the  prosperous  years  of 
peace  that  have  suddenly  come  to  an  end  and 
vomited  their  growing  distress  upon  the  world. 

208 


THE  COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 

That  which  was  hidden  has  been  revealed.  The 
disease  that  has  been  raging  unattended  in  the 
vitals  has  all  at  once  broken  out  upon  the  skin. 
Consequently,  if  we  are  shocked,  it  is  not  at  the 
crimes  but  at  the  war-paint  of  humanity. 

Has  it  not  become  clear  that  the  fundamental 
trouble  with  society  is  the  separation  of  power 
from  love,  our  willingness  to  give  to  power  the 
utmost  freedom  in  the  building  and  control  of 
industries  and  empires,  and  our  refusal  to  allow 
the  love-nature  of  woman  any  social  expression? 

Follow  it  out  into  every  branch  of  life  and  see 
if  the  metallic  leaves  of  civilization  are  not  what 
they  are  because  they  have  withered  for  want  of 
something  that  is  more  life-giving  than  power. 
On  the  one  hand  we  see  the  world  dehumanized 
for  purposes  of  production,  and  man  everywhere 
subordinated  to  things  until  it  has  become  pos- 
sible for  great  cities  in  the  course  of  their  nor- 
mal life  annually  to  turn  thousands  of  their 
helpless  men,  women  and  children  out  upon  the 
streets  for  no  other  cause  than  that  for  one 
reason  or  another  they  have  not  fitted  into  the 
iron  machinery  of  production.  On  the  other 
hand  we  see  woman,  the  bringer  forth  of  the 
child  and  therefore  the  representative  of  the  hu- 
man quality  and  of  the  humanizing  quality,  if  not 

209 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

at  present  shut  up  within  the  home,  at  least  shut 
out  from  the  larger  institutions  of  the  world. 
Nothing  in  human  psychology,  in  its  social  mani- 
festations, so  fills  one  with  astonishment  as  to 
see  humanity,  conscious  of  its  lost  condition, 
crying  up  the  skies  for  love  while  with  equal 
fervor  the  heart  of  woman  is  yearning  for  the 
world.  Will  mankind  never  perceive  the  rela- 
tion between  these  simultaneous  aspirations? 
It  is  as  though  the  race  were  suffering  from 
thirst  and  at  the  same  time  was  doing  every- 
thing in  its  power  to  keep  all  the  oxygen  on  one 
side  of  the  heavens  and  all  the  hydrogen  on  the 
other  side.  In  things  physical,  however,  no 
such  blunder  would  be  possible. 

Imagine  woman  in  the  dispossessing  business ! 
Picture  her,  if  you  can,  walking  through  her  fac- 
tory where  pale  children  are  at  work,  and  seeing 
only  the  machinery !  That  Herr  Krupp  should 
manufacture  cannon  creates  no  feeling  of  unfit- 
ness.  But  when  Herr  Krupp  suddenly  dies  and 
his  business  falls  into  the  lap  of  his  daughter 
Bertha,  the  incongruity  is  too  great  to  be  toler- 
ated. Immediately,  not  for  business  reasons 
but  for  moral  reasons,  a  husband  must  be  found 
to  relieve  the  monstrous  situation. 

Beyond  any  doubt  that  which  is  happening  in 
210 


THE  COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 

Europe  to-day  does  indeed  strike  deeper  than 
the  relations  of  Austria  and  Serbia,  deeper  even 
than  the  dream  of  the  early  Czar  for  a  port  upon 
the  open  sea.  It  is  nothing  less  than  a  cosmic 
struggle,  a  demonstration  by  the  savagery  of  a 
war  unequaled  in  history,  of  the  incompetency 
of  power  alone  and  unaided  to  build  anything 
that  will  endure. 

And  where,  during  all  these  intervening  years 
while  in  peace  and  in  countless  wars  fathers  and 
brothers  have  been  grappling  husbands  and  sons 
in  mortal  combat;  where,  during  all  these  cen- 
turies, have  been  the  Sabine  women?  Where 
are  they  now  when  the  sum  of  all  these  conflicts 
is  raging!  And  where,  when  the  present  strife 
is  over  and  the  remnants  of  the  armies  return  to 
build  out  of  the  ruins  of  the  past  new  institu- 
tions for  the  future,  where  then  will  woman 
be? 

I  have  said  that  this  struggle  is  a  cosmic 
struggle,  a  demonstration  by  Nature  of  the  utter 
futility  of  the  separation  of  power  and  love  in 
the  building  of  the  world.  Then  perhaps  Na- 
ture can  answer  these  questions.  Perhaps  she 
is  already  answering  them.  Perhaps  it  is  be- 
cause we  are  so  intent  upon  the  destroyer  that 
we  have  overlooked  the  quiet  work  of  the  ulti- 

211 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

mate  conqueror,  the  restorer.  It  is  well  that  we 
should  pause  and  consider  this.  For  if,  caught 
by  the  clamor  and  the  confusion,  we  contemplate 
simply  what  is  happening  along  the  borders  and 
fail  to  see  or  dismiss  as  of  slight  importance 
what  has  already  happened  in  the  interiors  of 
the  warring  nations,  we  shall  be  skipping  a 
chapter  in  the  evolution  of  humanity  without 
which  it  is  useless  to  go  on.  For  when  the  war 
is  over,  does  any  one  imagine  that  the  bound- 
aries of  the  nations  alone  will  be  changed  and 
not  also  the  boundaries  between  the  sexes  I  The 
journals  of  the  world  are  filled  with  the  expan- 
sion of  man,  his  sudden  rushing  from  fields  and 
factories  to  the  new  occupation  of  arms.  Little 
is  said  of  the  expansion  of  woman,  her  sudden 
outpouring  from  the  home  to  fill  up  the  places 
left  vacant  by  man.  And  yet  of  the  two,  who 
shall  say  that  the  effect  of  the  latter  will  not  be 
the  farther  reaching  and  the  more  enduring? 
Or  will  woman,  having  possessed  herself  of  the 
enlarged  areas  of  man 's  activities,  and  awake 
now  as  probably  never  before,  willingly  sur- 
render them  on  the  return  of  her  partner  and  be 
content  thereafter  in  the  narrower,  quieter 
sphere  of  "woman's  place " I 

We  may  get  some  light  upon  the  probable 
212 


THE  COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 

effect  upon  woman  of  the  present  war  by  a 
glance  at  what  happened  to  man  after  a  period 
of  similar  disturbance.  Did  man,  for  instance, 
after  his  expansion  during  the  Crusades,  when 
he  discovered  a  new,  vast  world  of  thought  and 
action,  did  he  upon  his  return  to  Europe  shrink 
back  into  the  contracted  boundaries  of  his  pre- 
vious life?  On  the  contrary,  under  the  inspira- 
tion of  that  great  adventure,  despite  the  long 
and  desperate  repressive  efforts  of  church  and 
state,  we.  all  know  how  the  spirit  of  man  broke 
through  the  Dark  Ages  and  burst  into  the  tre- 
mendous bloom  of  the  Eenaissance. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  Crusades  were  them- 
selves the  result  of  the  quickening  of  the  spirit 
of  man,  whereas  the  present  change  is  not  of 
woman's  seeking,  and  that  therefore  we  need 
not  expect  a  corresponding  forward  movement 
of  the  female.  And  there  is  doubtless  some- 
thing to  be  said  for  this.  On  the  other  hand, 
had  the  crusaders  been  thrust  toward  Asia  by 
forces  beyond  their  control,  it  is  inconceivable 
that  the  vision  of  a  wider  world  which  then 
dawned  upon  them  would  not  have  been  followed 
by  the  opening  of  new  life-channels  and  a  con- 
sequent alteration  of  existing  institutions. 
Furthermore,  we  must  remember  that  it  was  left 

213 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

to  man's  choice,  after  his  return  from  Asia, 
whether  he  should  go  on  along  new  paths  that 
had  opened  up,  whereas  in  the  present  case  of 
woman  the  same  necessity  that  forced  her  into 
the  new  domains  will  in  all  probability  keep  her 
there.  For  when  the  broken  ranks  of  the  male 
return  to  take  up  again  the  tools  of  labor,  who 
but  woman  will  fill  those  wide  gaps?  And  fill- 
ing those  wide  gaps,  bending  her  back  beneath 
the  crushing  burden  which  the  war  will  have 
laid  upon  her,  will  she  not  ask  the  question  how 
it  came  there?  And  will  she  be  satisfied  with 
the  answer  and  turn  humbly  to  her  labors  ? 

What  will  happen  in  Europe  to-morrow,  so 
far  as  it  bears  upon  the  place  of  woman  in  the 
reconstruction  that  will  surely  follow,  can  per- 
haps be  even  more  clearly  foreshadowed  if  we 
will  turn  to  a  calamity,  in  its  destructiveness  at 
least  comparable  to  the  present  war,  that  fell 
upon  England  in  the  latter  part  of  the  four- 
teenth century.  I  refer  to  the  Black  Death. 
Probably  nothing  in  the  whole  history  of  the  Is- 
land Kingdom  contributed  more  to  the  break-up 
of  serfdom  than  did  this  plague  which  so  deci- 
mated the  ranks  of  labor  that  those  formerly 
bound  to  the  soil  either  availed  themselves  of 
the  calamity  to  flee  to  freedom  elsewhere  or,  re- 

214 


THE  COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 

maining  upon  the  demesne,  were  out  of  sheer 
necessity  relieved  by  the  lord  of  the  burden  they 
had  borne. 

Does  any  one  imagine  that  a  similar  slaugh- 
ter can  take  place  to-day  and  similar  conse- 
quences not  follow?  For  years  Europe  has 
seethed  with  the  political,  economic  and  marital 
unrest  of  woman.  And  now  that  Death  is 
abroad  opening  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
domestic  doors  and  thrusting  woman  toward  the 
outer  world  and  freedom,  is  there  any  one  who 
does  not  perceive  that  the  end  of  another  and 
far  wider  serfdom  is  at  hand  ?  There  comes  to 
mind  more  than  one  instance  in  the  past  how  the 
common  people,  forbidden  the  sword  by  the 
upper  classes,  were  gradually  called  upon  by 
these  upper  classes  in  times  of  need,  and  how, 
having  the  responsibility  of  warfare  laid  upon 
them,  they  demanded  and  finally  secured  for 
themselves  the  full  rights  of  citizenship.  Now 
that  the  tool,  the  powerful  weapon  of  the  pres- 
ent, is  passing  in  Europe  into  the  hands  of 
woman,  long  denied  it,  will  not  the  right  and 
privileges,  a  coequal  control  of  the  world,  in- 
evitably follow? 

We  get  but  half  the  meaning  of  the  conflict  if 
we  do  not  see  that  the  fall  of  every  soldier  upon 

215 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

the  borders  drafts  a  woman  into  a  man's  place 
in  the  interior.  Read  the  lists  of  the  fallen  as 
they  lengthen  out  day  by  day  into  the  millions, 
as  they  shadow  forth  into  an  unknown  future, 
and  high  above  the  surges  of  steel  in  the  fore- 
ground stands  out  the  astounding  fact  that 
woman  who  hitherto  has  been  master  not  even 
of  her  own  home  will  presently  find  herself  in 
possession  of  a  continent. 

What  an  unlooked-for  ally  to  the  feminist  ad- 
vance !  It  is  as  though,  almost  at  the  beginning 
of  an  attack  upon  the  outworks  of  the  state,  the 
gates  of  the  whole  vast  social  structure  were 
suddenly  swung  wide  open.  Nature  has  come 
upon  man  from  behind,  and  while  his  attention 
is  fixed  upon  superficial  questions  of  victory  and 
sovereignty,  the  substantial  things  of  life  are 
being  appropriated  in  the  rear.  To-day,  as  al- 
ways, it  is  behind  the  show  of  power,  in  the  quiet 
places  of  peaceful  production  that  the  ultimate 
issues  are  being  determined.  The  great  ques- 
tion of  the  present  conflict  is  not  what,  when  the 
war  is  over,  the  Allies  will  do  with  Germany  or 
Germany  with  the  Allies,  but  what  woman  will 
do  with  her  opportunity.  Thus  far,  of  course, 
her  overflow  has  been  simply  into  the  channels 
of  labor,  and  there,  willing  or  unwilling,  as  we 

216 


THE  COSMIC  MEANING  OF  WOMAN 

have  seen,  she  will  doubtless  remain.  But  what 
then ?  Will  her  unrest  be  allayed?  Will  she  be 
content  with  her  new  tools,  and  settle  down  satis- 
fied with  her  new  freedom  ?  Or  will  she  realize 
that  the  end  is  not  yet,  that  to  remain  here  is 
still  to  be  a  serf,  that  her  opportunity  for  world 
service  lies  not  so  much  in  labor  as  in  those 
higher  spheres  of  control?  Will  she  under- 
stand that  to  give  peace  and  justice  to  the  world 
love  must  sit  side  by  side  with  power,  not  only 
willing  but  able  to  intervene?  Or  in  the  inevi- 
table struggle  to  reach  this  high  place,  will  she 
forget  her  great  cosmic  mission,  to  release  into 
the  world  the  waters  of  love,  and  hardened  by 
the  conflict  become  a  second  male,  another  unit 
of  power  to  continue  the  ravages  of  the  first? 
Will  this  homemaker  of  centuries  lose  her  vision 
and  forget  that  the  divine  purpose  of  her  com- 
ing is  to  make  of  the  world  a  home  I 


POETOGAMY 


IX 

POETOGAMY 

"TIT  WHETHER  the  now  famous  prophesy, 
V  V  published  broadcast  some  three  years 
ago  and  ascribed  to  Count  Tolstoy,  did  really 
emanate  from  the  great  Eussian,  that  part  of 
it  which  touches  the  altered  relations  of  the 
sexes  after  the  great  war,  which  even  then  he 
saw  beyond  the  horizon,  is  so  in  keeping  with 
lines  already  visible  and  moving  in  that  direc- 
tion that  it  is  worth  while  considering  what  was 
meant  by  the  word  poetogamy  there  used  to 
define  the  new  relation.  In  what  respect  is  this 
new  relation  to  be  different  from  that  which 
obtains  to-day  and  which  we  have  grown  to 
think  is  final?  Is  monogamy,  that  institution 
around  which  the  centuries  have  flowed  so  ca- 
ressingly, to  disappear?  And  is  something 
that  is  neither  polygamy  nor  polyandry  to  take 
its  place  ?  And  what  is  this  strange  thing  which 
is  somehow  to  come  forth  out  of  the  war-torn 
fields  of  Europe,  stimulated  into  vigorous  life 

221 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

possibly  by  the  tremendous  out-thrust  of  woman 
into  the  ranks  of  the  world?  And  when  it  ap- 
pears, how  will  it  nestle  into  the  life  we  now 
know?  Will  the  home  that  is  being  broken  up 
rise  again?  What  is  poetogamy?  What  are 
the  forces  that  are  crowding  it  into  the  fore- 
ground? And  most  of  all,  what  does  it  mean 
in  the  evolution  of  humanity? 

There  is  nothing  with  which  mankind  high 
and  low,  rich  and  poor,  intelligent  and  non-in- 
telligent, is  so  familiar,  and  nothing  which  it 
understands  less,  than  the  relation  of  man  and 
woman.  Here  is  something  that  preceded  by 
interminable  stretches  of  time  the  birth  of  the 
sciences  and  the  arts,  and  yet  how  little  do  we 
know  of  that  as  compared  to  these.  We  have 
weighed  the  heavens,  we  have  mapped  the  earth, 
we  have  dissected  and  given  names  to  every 
part,  almost  every  cell  of  the  human  body,  yet 
not  one  man  or  woman  can  tell  the  real  mean- 
ing of  the  difference  between  these  two  bodies. 
They  are  different,  that  is  all;  and  we  pass  on 
as  from  something  trivial  to  something  impor- 
tant. We  build  sciences,  we  explore  history,  we 
light  the  lamps  of  philosophy  in  the  temple  of 
the  soul,  but  no  lamp  is  hung  above  the  relation 
of  the  sexes.  From  childhood,  from  the  begin- 

222 


POETOGAMY 

ning  of  time,  we  have  pried  and  listened  about 
that  dark  chamber,  curious  to  know  and  under- 
stand, and  throughout  the  centuries  we  have 
been  waved  away.  We  have  been  told  that 
"sometime  we  shall  know,"  and  the  to-morrows 
have  passed  into  ages  and  still  the  generations 
come  to  linger  about  the  unlif  ted  veil  as  impene- 
trable as  it  was  thousands  of  years  ago.  Mean- 
while, with  what  vast  expenditure  of  thought 
and  energy  we  have  cleared  away  the  debris 
of  the  past  in  order  that  a  new  world  might 
rise!  Old  arts  are  changed  and  new  arts  are 
born.  Even  the  gods  of  our  fathers  come  down. 
In  every  hall  and  room  and  closet  there  is  reno- 
vation and  an  enlargement  of  life — save  in  one. 
Sex  is  still  the  attic  of  the  soul  where  the  dust 
of  ages  accumulates  and  where  the  spiders 
weave  and  prey. 

Strange  that  society  is  afraid  of  light  upon 
this  subject  and  yet  is  not  afraid  to  leave  it  in 
darkness.  Is  it  not  astonishing,  would  it  not 
be  astonishing  even  if  we  were  less  intelligent 
than  we  are,  that  a  matter  which  touches  so 
deeply  the  happiness  and  welfare  of  every  hu- 
man being  should  all  these  centuries  have  lain 
neglected  while  the  corners  of  the  earth  have 
been  ransacked  for  some  new  element  the  dis- 

223 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

covery  of  which  is  sure  to  be  hailed  as  a  mar- 
velous achievement?  It  is  as  though  a  tribe  of 
savages,  numbers  of  which  were  every  day 
breaking  their  limbs  and  losing  their  lives  be- 
cause of  their  ignorance  of  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion, should  hail  as  a  mighty  man  and  a  human 
benefactor  the  discoverer  of  some  new  star. 
The  law  of  sex  attraction  is  the  law  of  spiritual 
gravitation,  the  nature  and  operations  of  which 
we  no  more  understand  than  moths  understand 
the  nature  and  working  of  a  flame. 

Conceive  of  a  society  that  is  governed  by  a 
perfect  state,  with  men  and  women  working  as 
perfect  comrades  in  a  perfect  industrial  sytem ; 
add  to  this  a  perfect  church — so  far  as  such  a 
church  could  be  perfect — filling  to  perfection  the 
sphere  which  through  the  ages  the  church  has  set 
itself  to  fill.  We  have  left,  still  unprovided-for, 
to  organize  itself  as  best  it  may,  the  great  realm 
of  the  cosmic  relations  between  man  and  woman, 
a  realm  which  means  far  more  to  them  than  the 
state  in  which  they  live.  What  to  the  average 
man  are  the  laws  of  legislatures  compared  to  the 
mighty  law  here  operative?  Most  of  us  pass 
from  the  cradle  to  the  grave  without  realizing, 
so  far  as  they  affect  our  real  lives,  that  such 
things  as  statutes  exist.  And  yet  to  what  pains 

224 


POETOGAMY 

have  we  not  been  by  these  enactments  to  inform 
the  individual  of  his  proper  relation  to  his  fel- 
lows. But  this  other,  that  runs  through  life  like 
a  live  wire,  from  which  thousands  recoil  with 
grief  and  tragedy,  have  we  not,  with  almost 
equal  pains,  covered  it  up?  In  none  of  the  rela- 
tions of  life  is  the  effort  to  get  information  met 
with  such  suspicion.  And  to  suspicion  is  only 
too  often  added  denunciation,  even  persecution. 
That  life  is  clean  and  in  the  light  of  knowledge 
would  remain  so,  seems  never  to  have  occurred 
to  us.  We  would  make  it  clean  by  ignorance. 

In  this  chapter  I  am  going  to  try,  in  the  light 
of  history,  to  find  out  the  reason  for  this  hu- 
man perversity,  this  religious  devotion  to  the 
petty  facts  of  life  and  this  obstinate  neglect  of 
the  great  matter  of  sex.  And  I  shall  try  to 
show  at  what  point  this  intimate  thing  between 
man  and  woman  touches  society  and  therefore 
justifies  the  stepping  in  of  the  state,  and  where 
it  concerns  solely  the  two  whose  lives  have  some- 
how by  the  cosmic  urge  been  tossed  into  con- 
tact. 

Remembering  then  that  we  are  dealing  with 
something  that  goes  into  the  very  heart  of  life, 
something  that  is  coarse  or  refined,  physical 
or  spiritual,  as  the  mind  that  is  considering  it 

225 


is  coarse  or  refined,  physical  or  spiritual,  let 
us  see  if  we  cannot  find  out  how  it  has  come 
about  that  in  an  age  of  knowledge,  when  light 
is  spreading  into  every  corner  of  life,  the  an- 
cient darkness  still  hangs  over  the  great  king- 
dom of  the  sexes,  while  every  day  thousands 
of  men  and  women  find  themselves  hopelessly 
caught  and  their  happiness  oozing  away  between 
the  church,  the  director  of  the  conscience,  on 
the  one  side,  and  the  state,  the  guardian  of  the 
outer  welfare  of  society,  on  the  other,  or  in 
the  web  of  critical  public  opinion  that  through 
the  centuries  has  grown  up  between  these  two. 
Here  then  are  the  factors  of  the  mighty  prob- 
lem. Or  let  us  put  it  in  another  way.  The  in- 
dividual is  the  prisoner  at  the  bar,  church  and 
state  are  the  prosecutors,  and  public  opinion 
is  the  judge.  And  in  every  land  under  the  sun 
not  an  hour  passes  day  or  night,  yes,  not  even 
an  hour  in  the  night,  that  this  heart-breaking 
trial  is  not  going  on.  And  those  who  appear 
and  are  forced  to  bare  their  lives  and  plead 
for  release  or  for  mercy  are  of  every  rank  and 
condition  of  society.  And  into  what  tens  of 
thousands  do  they  run  annually,  these  mismated 
or  unmated  men  and  women,  in  cities  and  towns, 
in  every  land,  groping  about  in  the  fog,  a  con- 

226 


POETOGAMY 

slant  stream  of  them  coming  of  their  own  voli- 
tion or  haled  by  the  agents  of  society  into  the 
great  court  of  human  relations.  And  of  what 
vaster  throng  are  those  others,  proud  or  sen- 
sitive, who,  feeling  they  cannot  bear  this  sort 
of  thing,  humbly  accept  the  crumbs  of  life  and 
through  years  secretly  nurse  what  they  con- 
ceive to  be  an  incurable  grief  because  in  their 
opinion  the  remedy  is  worse  than  the  disease. 
And  little  wonder.  For  who  is  not  familiar 
with  the  enforced  vulgarity  of  the  divorce  court 
where  men  and  women  cannot  part  in  friendship 
but  where  in  order  to  correct  a  mistake,  often 
of  immaturity,  one  must  prove  the  other  a  crim- 
inal. Add  to  these  that  other  multitude,  restive, 
defiant,  and  portentously  increasing  day  by 
day,  who  scorn  to  accept  marriage  upon  any 
such  degrading  conditions  and  who  are  equally 
unwilling  to  bow  to  the  dictates  of  society  in 
what  they  conceive  to  be  a  purely  personal  mat- 
ter ;  who  hold  that  provided  there  be  no  child  it 
is  no  more  the  business  of  society  to  interfere  in 
the  relations  of  men  and  women,  freely  entered 
into,  than  it  is  its  business  to  interfere  in  their 
choice  of  occupation  or  the  clothes  they  wear.  It 
is  of  course  with  this  last  class  that  we  have  es- 
pecially to  do,  the  defiant  ones  who  are  neither 

227 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

divorcees  nor  Magdalenes,  but  men  and  women 
who  have  taken  their  stand  upon  this  matter 
as  upon  a  great  principle.  For  to  these  will 
openly  rally,  the  very  moment  it  is  seen  that 
their  stand  has  become  tenable,  all  those  who, 
whether  in  marriage  or  out  of  marriage,  have 
suffered  from  present  laws  or  conventions,  just 
as  it  always  happens  in  revolutions  when  pub- 
lic sentiment  shows  the  least  sign  of  turning. 
And  we  may  safely  challenge  any  man  who  is 
in  touch  with  life  to-day  to  say  that  the  heart 
of  the  world,  especially  the  heart  of  woman,  is 
not  in  suppressed  rebellion  under  the  paternal- 
ism of  laws  and  conventions  which  have  grown 
up  about  the  sex  relationship.  From  every 
quarter  of  the  globe  the  demand  is  becoming 
insistent  that  the  rights  of  the  individual  and 
of  the  state  in  this  matter  be  redefined. 

There  are  few  in  this  age  of  diffused  knowl- 
edge who  do  not  know  that  among  every  early 
people,  no  matter  how  high  they  may  since  have 
climbed  toward  a  more  tolerant  and  refined 
view  of  life,  slavery  was  once  an  institution 
cherished  and  safe-guarded  not  only  by  the  laws 
but  also  by  the  religion  of  the  country.  Pris- 
oners captured  in  war,  unoffending  people 
picked  up  as  spoil  by  brigands  in  their  pillaging 

228 


POETOGAMY 

expeditions,  men  whose  misfortune  it  was  to 
fall  into  debt  to  the  wealthy  classes,  all  these 
in  those  early  ages  flowed  down  into  the  slave 
pens  of  the  world.  And  so  far  was  this  mon- 
strous interference  with  the  rights  of  men  from 
being  considered  tyrannical  or  wrong  that  it 
was  never  considered  at  all.  It  was  part  of 
the  natural  function  of  society,  like  the  build- 
ing of  houses  or  the  eating  of  food.  And  the 
least  sign  of  revolt  or  of  serious  discontent  on 
the  part  of  this  wretched  class  was  put  down 
not  simply  as  something  that  should  not  be  tol- 
erated but  as  something  preposterous,  as 
though  the  hand  should  rise  in  rebellion  against 
the  head.  In  the  opinion  of  its  then  guardians, 
society  could  not  exist  without  this  moral  or- 
der, this  God-appointed  arrangement.  Natu- 
rally, therefore,  it  was  not  slavery  but  the  con- 
demnation of  slavery  that  was  opposed  to  or- 
der, and  every  suggestion  of  change,  if  it  showed 
the  least  likelihood  of  weakening  this  salutary 
bond  of  society,  was  put  down  by  public  opinion 
with  rebuke  or  ostracism,  by  the  state  with  the 
hard  hand  of  the  law,  by  the  church  with  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  punishment  in  the  hereafter. 
Such  among  every  people  was  the  fate  of  those 
who  dared  to  stand  for  the  right  of  individuals 

229 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

to  do  as  they  pleased  in  the  matter  of  their 
labor. 

Passing  now  to  a  second  institution  which, 
upon  the  collapse  in  Europe  of  the  main  struc- 
ture of  slavery,  was  able,  like  another  cancer, 
to  perpetuate  itself  through  the  centuries — I  re- 
fer to  the  institution  of  orthodoxy — we  have 
another  wide  field  of  operation  over  which  in  the 
general  darkness  then  prevailing — the  inevita- 
ble shadow  of  this  institution — rolled  another 
battle  for  human  freedom.  Here  the  contest 
is  removed  from  the  physical  to  the  mental,  for 
a  new  age  has  now  come  in  which  man  is  to  be 
put  to  a  second  test  that  involves  his  finding  his 
way  out  of  another  darkness.  The  issue  is  now 
the  emancipation  of  the  mind,  the  question 
whether  man  shall  have  the  right  to  face  life 
for  himself  and  to  work  out  his  own  personal 
problem  in  his  own  way  or  slavishly  to  obey 
a  controlling  paternalism.  Upon  the  issue  of 
that  contest,  as  we  now  see  it,  depended  that 
prime  spiritual  possession,  the  right  to  think 
in  freedom,  to  experiment  with  life  and  to  accept 
at  the  hands  of  life  its  corrections.  Does  any 
one  doubt  that  the  powerful  forces  then  arrayed 
against  the  new  freedom  of  thought  were  the 
same  forces  that  had  stood  so  obstinately  and 

230 


POETOGAMY 

struck  out  so  fiercely  before  against  the  free- 
dom of  labor?  Is  there  one  intelligent  man  or 
woman  who,  because  the  wheel  of  power  has 
now  turned  round  and  the  churchman  has  suc- 
ceeded the  statesman,  and  the  missionaries  of 
the  Roman  faith  have  displaced  on  the  battle 
line  the  soldiers  of  the  Roman  law,  does  not  see 
that  the  power  which  at  this  time,  to  stamp  out 
freedom  of  thought,  filled  Europe  with  every 
instrument  of  torture  which  human  ingenuity 
could  devise,  is  identically  the  same  as  that 
which  centuries  before  set  up  at  one  time  in 
the  island  of  Sicily  alone  twenty  thousand 
crosses  upon  which  were  nailed  twenty  thousand 
slaves  who  had  dared  to  question  the  right  of 
the  established  order  to  do  as  it  pleased  with 
the  labor  of  men? 

The  enforcement  of  orthodoxy  was  the  su- 
preme crime  of  the  church,  as  the  enforcement 
of  slavery  was  the  supreme  crime  of  the  state. 
And  in  the  perpetuation  of  these  vicious  tyran- 
nies each  could  always  count  upon  the  support 
of  the  other  and,  strange  to  say,  upon  the  sup- 
port of  society  whose  education  they  had  taken 
care  all  the  while  to  keep  firmly  in  hand.  Even 
after  a  few  bold  spirits  had  awakened  and,  ap- 
pealing to  the  higher  instincts  of  men,  were 

231 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

seeking  to  compel  these  institutions  to  keep 
hands  off  the  budding  mind  of  humanity,  the 
vast  majority  of  the  people  of  those  Dark  Ages, 
as  we  truly  call  them,  were  arrayed  against 
their  own  freedom,  denouncing  as  heretics  and 
either  burning  or  tearing  to  pieces  or  applaud- 
ing these  monstrous  crimes  against  the  pioneers 
of  the  new  freedom. 

"With  the  abolition  of  slavery  and  orthodoxy 
has  humanity  completed  its  emancipation?  We 
have  seen  how  through  the  centuries  the  forces 
of  a  static  world  have  gradually  been  driven 
from  their  control,  first  of  man's  body  and  then 
of  his  mind.  Is  there  a  third  realm  farther  in 
toward  the  depths  of  the  spirit,  a  seat  of  power 
in  the  unexplored  shadows  of  life  which  man, 
if  he  would  be  free  indeed,  must  discover  and 
make  his  own?  Is  there  another  responsibility 
which  as  an  individual  he  must  take  upon  him- 
self as  he  marches  on  toward  his  goal?  Un- 
doubtedly. There  is  no  such  thing  as  ultimate 
freedom.  The  progress  of  the  individual  will 
always  encounter  the  resistance  of  the  mass 
which  will  always  regard  his  pushing  forward 
as  destructive.  Finally,  as  the  number  of  these 
forward-pushing  individuals  increases,  there 
will  come  a  time  when,  to  those  who  have  still 

232 


POETOGAMY 

not  caught  the  new  vision,  society  will  seem  to  be 
breaking  up.  Then  if  humanity  is  wise  it  will 
insist  upon  a  free  and  full  discussion  of  that 
which  is  causing  the  unrest,  in  order  that  so- 
ciety may  not,  in  its  misunderstanding  of  the 
phenomenon,  obstruct  the  march  of  humanity 
into  a  larger  life. 

Centuries  hence  when  mankind  looks  back 
upon  the  present  age  as  we  look  back  upon  the 
ages  that  lie  behind  us,  it  will  be  seen  that 
society  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  and  the 
opening  of  the  twentieth  century  was  in  the 
throes  of  a  third  struggle  for  freedom  in  every 
respect  as  important  to  the  forward  movement 
of  humanity  as  the  two  we  have  just  considered 
which  culminated  in  the  establishment  of  free 
labor  and  free  thought. 

The  coming  of  woman  into  the  outer  life  of  the 
world  which  the  last  half  century  has  witnessed 
is  comparable  as  a  social  phenomenon  to  the 
birth  of  science  in  the  Dark  Ages.  It  would 
be  easy  to  parallel  the  appearance  of  these  two, 
to  identify  their  transforming  influences,  and  to 
show  how  in  both  cases  the  reaction  of  society 
was  the  same.  There  has  been  the  same  sus- 
picion, the  same  alarm,  and  the  same  sort  of 
activity  among  institutionalists,  the  same  op- 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

position  to  the  entrance  of  woman  into  the  af- 
fairs of  the  world  as  there  was  centuries  ago  to 
the  coming  of  science.  Already  along  the  short 
path  over  which  woman  has  thus  far  traveled 
toward  freedom,  there  is  the  same  martyrdom, 
softened,  I  started  to  say,  by  the  humanities  of 
the  age,  but  nevertheless  the  same  as  that  which 
from  Roger  Bacon  to  Francisco  Ferrer  has 
marked  the  long  road  of  science. 

And  yet  while  the  Social  reaction  has  been  the 
same,  the  revolution  which  science  wrought  is 
as  different  from  that  which  woman  has  set  in 
motion  as  the  knowledge  of  radium  is  different 
from  Madame  Curie.  Science  is  a  cold  white 
light;  woman  is  a  human  being.  Science  is 
chiefly  concerned  with  the  fact;  woman,  with 
experience.  Science  may  advance  though  the 
scientist  keeps  to  his  cloister,  whereas  to  widen 
experience  it  is  necessary  for  woman  to  come 
out  into  the  world  and  into  contact  with  other 
persons.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the 
present  revolution  which  is  gathering  in  the 
wake  of  woman  is  to  usher  in  not  so  much 
new  systems  of  thought  as  new  arrangements  of 
life,  a  renaissance  of  human  relations.  In 
other  words,  the  field  which  the  pioneers  of  the 
present  world-wide  but  as  yet  loosely  organized 

234 


POETOGAMY 

movement  have  earnestly  set  themselves  to  pos- 
sess and  clear,  is  generally  the  whole  field  of 
ethics  and  particularly  that  neglected  section 
of  it  which  through  the  centuries  has  become 
known  as  sex  morality. 

We  can  get  some  idea  of  the  magnitude  of  the 
task  they  have  undertaken  if  we  will  only  re- 
member that  as  yet  we  are  not  able  even  to  de- 
fine sex  morality.  We  are  in  practically  the 
same  position  with  regard  to  the  work  which 
we  have  to  do  as  were  the  people  of  the  twelfth 
century  with  regard  to  that  which  confronted 
them.  There  is  even  the  same  reluctance  to  go 
forward,  the  same  fear  of  what  may  come,  the 
same  obstacles  thrown  in  the  way  of  investiga- 
tion as  our  forefathers  encountered  eight  cen- 
turies ago  in  the  first  steps  toward  the  scientific 
age.  And  therefore  while  intellectually  we  are 
grown  up,  in  our  knowledge  of  sex  morality  we 
are  but  little  ahead  of  the  shaggy,  slant-browed 
creature  who  fled  from  his  cave  at  the  coming 
of  the  glacier.  Stop  the  average  man  upon  the 
street  and  ask  him  to  tell  you  something  of 
electricity  and  he  will  astonish  you.  Then  ask 
him  to  tell  you  something  of  sex  morality  and 
he  will  astonish  you  again — by  his  ignorance. 
Or  ask  him  to  define  for  you  the  relation  of  the 

235 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

individual  to  society  in  the  matter  of  property, 
how  far  the  individual  may  go  in  using  or  dis- 
posing of  his  private  possessions,  under  what 
circumstances  the  state  may  interfere  and  the 
justification  for  such  interference,  and  in  ninety- 
nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred  he  will  show  an  in- 
timate understanding  of  these  things.  But 
touch  upon  the  matter  of  sex  relations ;  ask  him 
under  what  circumstances  the  state  is  justified 
in  interfering  in  the  relation  of  man  and  woman 
— justified,  I  mean,  not  legally  but  morally — 
and  he  will  be  unable  to  answer  you  or  his 
answers,  if  you  care  to  compare  them,  will  be 
found  to  be  essentially  the  same  as  those  made 
centuries  ago  when  the  question  concerned  the 
right  of  a  person  to  think  his  own  way  through 
life.  When  I  say,  therefore,  that  in  respect  of 
our  understanding  of  sex  morality  we  are  still 
in  the  Dark  Ages,  I  mean  exactly  what  I  say. 
The  mind  of  the  average  man  is  as  incapable 
of  dealing  intelligently  with  this  subject  as  was 
that  of  the  average  man  of  centuries  ago  with 
the  sciences  then  coming  to  light.  Then,  as  we 
know,  the  subject  of  free  thought  was  taboo  as 
heretical  and  dangerous,  was  suppressed  by 
both  church  and  state  for  the  "good  of  society." 
So  to-day  for  precisely  the  same  reason,  pre- 
236 


POETOGAMY 

cisely  the  same  attitude  is  taken  toward  the 
discussion  of  sex  morality.  We  have  allowed 
the  prurient  and  the  vulgar-minded,  who  them- 
selves are  never  controlled  by  these  considera- 
tions, to  prevent  the  spread  of  light  over  one 
of  the  most  vital  spiritual  problems  that  can 
touch  a  human  being,  one  which  goes  far  deeper 
into  his  nature  and  there  exercises  an  influence 
far  more  elevating  or  degrading  than  any  matter 
of  industry  or  politics  can  possibly  exercise,  one 
which  takes  hands  upon  the  highest  planes  of 
life  with  religion.  And  in  the  midst  of  this 
lamentable  confusion  as  to  the  right  relation 
of  the  sexes,  woman  has  burst  upon  the  world ! 
If  there  was  ever  since  the  beginning  of  time 
an  age  so  unprepared  as  the  present  for  the 
coming  of  a  new  and  mighty  factor,  I  do  not 
know  when  it  was.  It  is  almost  as  though  the 
wheat  of  the  world  should  push  up  through 
frozen  ground  and  come  to  harvest  when  the 
fields  were  full  of  snow.  From  centuries  of 
secluded  association  with  father  and  brother,  al- 
most in  a  day  and  with  no  increase  of  knowl- 
edge, woman  has  been  tossed  out  upon  the  paths 
of  men.  If  we  had  not  been  engrossed  with 
other  things  the  resultant  intoxication  might 
have  been  foreseen,  and  the  inevitable  straining 

237 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

of  the  conventions  provided  for.  But  with  not 
even  a  consciousness,  it  would  seem,  of  the  sig- 
nificance of  this  change,  the  very  natures  of 
man  and  woman  have  come  into  electrical  con- 
tact, woman  the  seeker  after  experience,  and 
man  the  protector  of  institutions.  And  not 
woman  but  man  is  at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  do. 
Trained  to  expect  woman  to  fill  a  place,  he  sees 
her  flowing  out  into  all  places.  Educated  to 
regard  her  as  a  possession,  he  finds  her  becom- 
ing conscious  of  something  beyond,  likely  to  be- 
come the  possession  of  others.  From  centuries 
as  a  wife,  familiar  as  the  commonest  thing  of 
the  house,  she  has  suddenly  put  on  the  garment 
of  uncertainty,  a  companion  to-day,  a  stranger 
to-morrow.  Cling  as  we  may  to  the  pleasing 
fancy  of  a  static  relationship  between  man  and 
woman,  as  in  the  long  ago  we  clung  to  the  simi- 
lar illusion  of  a  static  labor  and  a  static  thought, 
the  very  days  tell  us  it  cannot  be.  And  yet  de- 
spite the  testimony  even  of  our  eyes  and  ears, 
we  persist  in  our  efforts  to  arrest  and  bring  to 
a  pause  the  inevitable  change.  We  even  shut 
our  eyes  in  order  to  convince  ourselves  that 
our  procedure  is  rational.  Meanwhile,  a  being 
whose  interest  through  the  ages  has  been  almost 
wholly  a  sex  interest  is  pouring  out  into  a 

238 


POETOGAMY 

world  that  knows  nothing  of  sex,  a  world  which 
man  has  laid  out  for  the  game  of  life  in  which 
there  is  nothing  between  him  and  the  stake  he 
desires.  And  in  the  grind  of  this  astounding 
maladjustment,  while  we  unconcernedly  look 
on,  thousands  of  lives  annually  are  going  to 
pieces. 

From  the  standpoint  merely  of  social  econ- 
omy and  the  elimination  of  human  suffering, 
it  is  exceedingly  unfortunate  that  science  was 
not  long  ago  encouraged  to  turn  its  attention 
to  the  study  of  man  and  woman  and  their  cosmic 
relations,  in  order  that  we  might  have  some- 
thing of  the  fundamental  knowledge  upon  this 
subject  which  we  have  upon  other  subjects  that 
science  has  touched.  For  the  situation  in  which 
we  now  find  ourselves  is  one  that  may  well 
arouse  social  concern.  As  a  makeshift  to  patch 
up  the  wreck  of  our  neglect  we  have  allowed  a 
matter  which  should  have  been  handled  solely 
by  education  to  slip  by  us  into  the  courts.  For 
want  of  teachers  we  have  turned  to  policemen. 
Because  we  do  not  understand,  we  punish ;  and 
heedless  of  the  example  of  our  forefathers 
whom  we  now  honor  for  their  liberation  of  the 
human  mind,  instead  of  insisting  that  sex  moral- 
ity too  belongs  in  the  field  of  education,  we  sit 

239 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

by  and  allow  the  misalliances  of  men  and  women 
to  be  thrust  into  the  category  of  crime.  Knowl- 
edge is  denied,  and  yet  it  is  a  penal  offense 
to  make  a  mistake.  If  the  mistake  has  re- 
sulted in  marriage,  it  can  be  corrected  only  by 
confessing  a  crime  or  by  proving  a  crime.  If 
it  has  not  resulted  in  marriage,  it  is  even  worse. 
And  when  the  courts  have  delivered  their  pro- 
nouncements, those  who  have  come  and  those 
who  have  been  brought  are  thereafter  wiser 
only  as  to  the  provisions  of  the  statutes.  Mean- 
while other  generations  come  on,  stumbling  in 
the  same  ancient  darkness,  and  the  farce  goes 
on  forever. 

Is  there  no  way  by  which  this  criminal  pro- 
cedure may  be  stopped  and  this  whole  matter 
be  brought  back  to  the  basis  of  education? 
Have  we  so  long  accustomed  ourselves  to  rely- 
ing upon  the  state  to  correct  our  blunders  that 
we  have  forgotten  that  the  spiritual  forces  prop- 
erly directed  are  themselves  adequate,  in  fact 
that  they  alone  are  adequate  to  produce  a 
poised,  self -controlled  human  being?  Have  we 
forgotten,  furthermore,  that  we  have  no  more 
right  to  interfere  with  the  free  choice  of  a  man 
and  a  woman  in  the  matter  of  conduct,  where 
this  conduct  does  not  actually  interfere  with 

240 


POETOGAMY 

the  rights  of  others,  than  we  have  to  interfere 
with  the  thoughts  that  two  persons  may  choose 
to  think  1  And  this  interference,  let  us  remem- 
ber, must  be  actual,  not  imaginary;  must  be  of 
a  more  tangible  character  than  those  subtle  con- 
siderations which  we  call  sensibilities.  For  if 
we  admit  as  a  principle  of  action  that  the  con- 
duct of  one  person  must  square  with  the  sensi- 
bilities of  another  person,  we  shall  soon  find 
ourselves  falling  into  the  same  unreasonable  in- 
tolerance as  our  forefathers  showed  centuries 
ago  toward  freedom  of  thought.  It  was  because 
this  freedom  of  thought  shocked  their  sensibili- 
ties, not  because  it  interfered  with  their  rights, 
that  they  objected.  Have  we  fought  through 
two  great  battles  for  human  freedom,  and  yet 
have  no  vision  for  the  third? 

In  the  matter  of  labor,  since  man  emerged 
from  slavery,  it  has  been  a  principle  of  law 
that  two  responsible  persons  may  enter  into  a 
contract  and  such  contract  is  everywhere  rec- 
ognized as  legal  provided  it  does  not  interfere 
with  the  right  of  other  persons  to  make  a  simi- 
lar contract.  And  later,  if  the  parties  to  this 
contract  in  which  no  third  party  is  involved,  de- 
sire at  any  time  to  terminate  their  agreement, 
society  has  come  to  recognize  it  as  a  sacred  obli- 

241 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

gallon  that  this  privilege  be  respected.  The  fact 
that  other  persons  who  have  made  similar  con- 
tracts have  no  such  desire  has  no  bearing  what- 
ever on  the  case.  Furthermore,  to  enquire  into 
the  cause  of  this  change  of  mind  in  the  con- 
tracting parties  is  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  court.  Compare  this  respectful  and  ra- 
tional attitude,  in  a  matter  which  concerns 
merely  dollars  and  cents,  with  the  prying,  offi- 
cious, vulgar  curiosity  when  two  persons  who 
have  entered  into  a  marriage  contract  appear 
and  ask  to  have  the  contract  ended.  If  our 
fathers  could  return,  "Here,"  they  would  say, 
"is  the  Inquisition  again."  And  undoubtedly 
in  essential  features  there  is  a  striking  resem- 
blance. Compare  again  our  rational  procedure 
in  business  relations  where  we  consider  our  ob- 
ligation fully  discharged  when  we  have  provided 
opportunities  for  contract,  and  regard  the  fail- 
ure of  persons  to  avail  themselves  of  these  op- 
portunities as  something  that  concerns  only 
themselves — compare  with  this  our  attitude  to- 
ward those  who  do  not  come  under  the  shelter  of 
contract  in  the  sex  relations.  In  both  cases,  we 
have  provided  protection,  but  how  vastly  differ- 
ent our  views  of  the  relation  of  the  individual  to 
this  protection.  In  the  former  case,  it  is  op- 

242 


POETOGAMY 

tional ;  in  the  latter,  compulsory.  In  the  one  we 
seem  to  understand  that  we  are  dealing  with 
men  and  women;  in  the  other  we  proceed  as 
though  these  same  men  and  women  had  returned 
to  the  nursery.  Therefore  in  business  we  have 
democracy ;  in  the  sex  relations,  paternalism. 

For  the  child,  we  say,  the  helpless  child. 
Here,  certainly,  we  come  upon  solid  ground,  the 
only  solid  ground  we  have  met.  Beyond  any 
question  the  child  should  be  protected  in  some 
way;  through  the  state  if  necessary.  Society 
should  see  to  it  that  the  child  is  provided  for. 
But  what  do  we  mean  by  providing  for  the  child? 
Suppose  the  parents  have  not  been  married. 
What  should  the  world  do  with  this  little  crea- 
ture? What  should  be  his  relation  to  the  other 
children  of  the  world,  the  respectably  born?  In 
nothing  has  the  Christian  world  come  further 
from  understanding  Christianity  than  in  its  an- 
swers to  these  questions.  Against  every  prin- 
ciple of  Christianity  it  has  branded  and  made 
outcasts  of  thousands  of  children.  And 
through  all  these  centuries  it  has  sought  to 
escape  the  just  condemnation  of  its  inhuman 
attitude  by  shifting  the  blame  upon  the  parents. 
The  child  ought  never  to  have  been  born  under 
the  circumstances.  The  fact  that  it  has  been 

243 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

so  born,  that  it  was  so  born  yesterday  and  will 
be  so  born  to-morrow,  is  never  quite  faced  by 
the  Christian  world.  It  is  of  deeper  concern, 
it  would  seem,  and  more  in  furtherance  of  re- 
ligion, to  enforce  conformity  to  the  conventions 
on  the  part  of  the  parents  than  to  see  to  it  that 
through  a  broad  charity  and  right  education  a 
human  place  is  made  in  the  world  for  the  child. 
It  is  often  a  source  of  profound  astonishment  to 
hear  people,  who  in  other  respects  show  no  par- 
ticular interest  in  the  child,  who  "when  disci- 
pline demands  it"  have  no  hesitation  in  inflict- 
ing brutal  punishment  upon  their  own  children, 
express  themselves  with  fervor  upon  the  right  of 
the  child  to  be  "properly  born."  To  such  peo- 
ple this  phrase  has  but  one  meaning,  that  the 
parents  have  been  legally  married.  A  healthful 
environment,  sufficiency  of  food,  and  opportu- 
nities for  education,  these  are  not  embraced  in 
the  term.  A  bit  of  Phariseeism  more  genuine 
than  this  it  would  be  hard  to  find.  If  the  child 
suffers  from  being  born  outside  of  marriage,  who 
does  not  see  it  is  society  that  is  to  blame  for  it? 
Just  as  in  an  age,  happily  now  past,  society  was 
responsible  for  the  somewhat  similar  disad- 
vantages which  the  child  suffered  from  having 

244 


POETOGAMY 

parents  who  were  free-thinkers.  Then,  too,  we 
remember,  the  blame  was  laid  upon  the  parents. 

As  regards  both  labor  and  thought,  man  has 
outgrown  the  nursery  of  institutional  interfer- 
ence. He  has  earned  and  now  maintains  the 
right  to  make  a  mistake  and  to  learn  not  from 
punishment  laid  upon  him  from  outside  but  from 
the  reaction  of  the  mistake  upon  his  own  life. 
In  these  matters  we  have  come  to  perceive  that 
it  is  best  both  for  the  individual  and  for  so- 
ciety to  allow  personal  experience  with  its  cer- 
tain rewards  and  its  equally  certain  punish- 
ments the  widest  possible  latitude.  And  in  in- 
dustry and  opinion  we  ease  off  the  rougher  re- 
actions which  the  stumbling  man  or  woman  may 
encounter  not  by  arrests  and  imprisonments  but 
by  the  saner  way  of  kindling  in  the  mind  by  edu- 
cation of  a  truer  knowledge  of  life. 

The  abolition  of  slavery  did  not  mean  that 
thereafter  a  man  was  to  have  no  right  to  en- 
gage himself  to  another  man  upon  whatsoever 
terms  and  conditions  he  saw  fit,  for  a  lifetime 
if  he  so  desired.  It  simply  meant  that  he  was 
not  thereafter  to  be  compelled  to  do  so.  The 
abolition  of  orthodoxy  did  not  mean  that  there- 
after a  man  was  to  be  forbidden  to  cling  to  his 

245 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

creed  if  lie  so  desired,  but  simply  that  lie  was 
not  to  be  forced  to  do  so  against  his  desire. 

What  then  is  poetogamy,  this  new  institution 
touching  the  relation  of  man  and  woman  which 
Tolstoy  foresaw  rising  beyond  the  great  war? 
Obviously  the  third  step  in  human  freedom,  a 
widening  of  the  privileges  and  the  responsibili- 
ties of  the  individual.  Does  it  involve  the  pass- 
ing of  monogamy?  Certainly  not.  Will  it 
stamp  out  polygamy  and  polyandry?  Again, 
certainly  not.  Poetogamy  is  simply  respect  for 
the  right  of  others  to  do  as  they  please  in  the 
matter  of  sex  relations,  the  opening  of  the  gate 
for  law  to  step  out  and  for  education  to  step 
into  this  realm,  precisely  as  we  have  seen,  for 
a  similar  purpose,  two  other  gates  open  in  the 
past.  The  struggles  for  free  labor  and  free 
thought  were  won  by  man.  Is  it  too  much  to 
hope  that  the  glory  of  the  third  victory  will  fall 
to  woman? 


246 


THE  CULTURAL  OBSESSION 


THE   CULTURAL  OBSESSION 

THE  historian  of  the  future  who  dips  back 
into  the  files  of  present-day  newspapers 
seeking  material  for  an  adequate  account  of 
the  Great  War  will  find  within  the  field  that  he 
must  cover  an  element  which  the  historian  of 
no  other  war  has  had  seriously  to  consider. 
Heretofore  it  has  been  sufficient  to  set  forth  the 
causes,  progress,  and  consequences  of  a  conflict 
as  they  worked  themselves  out  along  lines  cen- 
tering in  and  branching  out  from  three  leading 
characters:  the  statesman  who,  with  his  eyes 
upon  the  boundaries  and  the  fate  of  states,  holds 
in  his  hand  the  tangled  threads  of  diplomacy; 
the  financier,  or  master  of  essentials  shall  we 
call  him,  who  embodies  in  himself  the  difficult 
problem  of  immediate  supplies  and  the  future 
economic  welfare  of  his  country;  and  the  gen- 
eral commanding  the  armies  in  the  field.  But 
already  in  the  present  conflict,  owing  to  a  new 
factor  which  for  some  time  has  slowly  been 
edging  its  way  toward  world  control,  a  fourth 

249 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

figure  has  emerged  and  already  has  taken  his 
place  with  the  other  three.  And  the  task  as- 
signed to  this  new-comer,  if  we  may  judge  from 
the  attention  he  has  received,  is  quite  as  im- 
portant as  those  presided  over  by  any  of  his 
colleagues.  For  since  the  conquest  of  human- 
ity by  the  newspapers  and  the  consequent  tap- 
ping of  the  sources  of  public  opinion,  a  high 
judiciary  has  come  into  existence  before  which, 
willing  or  unwilling,  nations  are  tried.  And 
this  public  opinion,  slowly  educated  to  peace, 
has  become  such  an  avowed  enemy  to  war  that 
armed  nations  have  found  it  necessary  to  create 
and  maintain  what  amounts  to  a  new  branch  of 
the  military  service  which,  for  want  of  a  better 
name,  we  may  call  the  Corps  of  National  Apolo- 
gists. Even  nations  engaged  in  defensive  war- 
fare have  been  obliged  to  adopt  this  new  type 
of  military  assistant  whose  duty  it  is  to  guard 
the  moral  commissariat  of  the  armies  or,  to 
put  it  in  another  way,  to  stand  between  the 
world's  conscience  and  the  horrors  of  the  battle- 
field, and,  when  the  scales  tip  with  an  over- 
weight of  what  seems  wanton  carnage,  to  throw 
into  the  other  side  powerful  phrases  of  justice 
and  of  right.  Therefore  the  battle  of  brains 
that  goes  on  from  the  peaceful  interiors  of  the 

250 


THE  CULTURAL  OBSESSION 

warring  nations,  the  charge  and  counter-charge 
of  professors  and  litterateurs  who  at  the  first 
tap  of  the  drum  seem  also  to  have  been  sum- 
moned to  the  colors  and  who,  night  and  day,  as 
though  the  fate  of  their  countries  depended  upon 
them,  hurry  with  their  briefs  into  the  great 
court  of  neutral  opinion. 

It  is  strange  when  the  nations  engaged  have 
been  so  little  regardful  of  the  world's  opinion 
that  such  strenuous  efforts  should  be  made  to 
capture  the  world's  sympathy.  Great  works  of 
literature  are  being  left  in  tragic  incomplete- 
ness, the  advance  of  science  is  being  halted,  and 
in  philosophy  who  knows  what  masterpieces  are 
being  lost,  in  order  that  the  belligerent  nations 
may  not  lack  skilled  advocates  to  justify  the 
course  they  have  adopted  and  forcibly  to  present 
to  a  public,  too  apt  to  overlook  them,  those  other 
considerations  which  are  of  more  importance 
than  human  life.  There  is  not  a  loophole,  not  a 
crevice  anywhere  in  the  wall  of  the  world's  opin- 
ion, that  offers  the  least  opening  to  a  wedge  but 
some  famous  writer  of  fiction,  some  renowned 
psychologist  or  some  essayist  of  reputation,  is 
not  there  pleading  for  a  chance  to  be  heard. 
Even  ancient  friendships  are  dug  up  from  the 
forgotten  past  and  are  made  occasions  of 

251 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

lengthy  epistles,  obviously  intended  for  a  wider 
public,  to  show  what  an  irreparable  loss  the 
world  would  suffer  should  the  "barbarian"  win. 
It  was  not  unforeseen  by  those  who  have 
watched  with  any  understanding  the  develop- 
ment of  Europe  that  in  the  event  of  a  war  be- 
tween the  leading  nations  of  that  continent  the 
word  that  would  probably  be  most  often  requisi- 
tioned to  designate  the  foe  would  be  the  word 
"barbarian."  For  always  there  is  some  word 
which,  by  a  sort  of  subtle  agreement,  is  ac- 
cepted among  the  nations  as  expressive  of  su- 
preme contempt.  For  centuries  the  word  em- 
ployed for  this  purpose  was  the  word  "heathen" 
or  "infidel."  But  since  the  decline  of  Chris- 
tianity and  the  falling  away  of  millions  from  the 
church  these  words  long  ago  ceased  to  rankle 
and  have  therefore  of  their  own  weight  fallen 
into  disuse.  But  with  the  rise  of  the  school, 
an  essentially  pagan  institution,  to  the  position 
of  supreme  influence,  a  new  ideal  has  arisen 
which  has  necessitated  the  finding  of  a  new 
word,  one  as  expressive  of  the  utter  lack  of 
the  essentials  of  the  true  civilization  as  was  the 
former  of  the  essentials  of  the  true  religion. 
If  the  school  were  an  institution  that  had  come 
into  existence  within  recent  times,  like  the  press, 

252 


THE  CULTURAL  OBSESSION 

if  culture  were  a  magical  growth  of  last  night, 
it  would  have  been  much  more  difficult  to  find 
the  precise  word.  But  the  school,  like  the 
church,  is  ancient  of  days  and  has  a  vocabulary 
mellow  and  adequate  to  the  needs  both  of  in- 
dividuals and  of  nations,  and  therefore  almost 
instinctively  there  has  leaped  into  the  mouths 
of  the  Frenchman,  the  Englishman,  and  the  Ger- 
man a  word  which  has  lain  unused  since  the 
eclipse  of  Greece.  Now  that  Europe  has  become 
pagan  or,  let  us  say,  classical,  after  two  thou- 
sand years  of  dormancy  the  word  "  barbarian" 
wakes  again  into  life  and  once  more  with  terri- 
ble disdain  is  hurled  now  across  the  Rhine,  now 
over  into  Russia,  and  now  this  way  and  that 
across  the  Channel. 

This,  then,  is  the  new  element,  this  tumult  in 
the  interiors  of  the  warring  nations,  the  attack 
of  one  culture  upon  another,  each  claiming  su- 
periority, that  the  future  historian  will  have  to 
deal  with  if  he  expects  to  hand  on  to  after  ages 
an  adequate  account  of  the  Great  War.  For 
beside  columns  devoted  to  field  operations,  to 
the  killing  and  wounding  of  millions  of  men,  to 
the  devastation  of  lands  and  the  pauperization 
of  peoples,  he  will  come  upon  other  columns  in 
which,  like  a  battle  in  the  clouds,  for  the  benefit 

253 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

of  neutral  nations  this  strange  debate  goes  on 
over  the  relative  merits  of  their  respective  cul- 
tures. 

It  is  a  good  thing  that  the  war  has  again 
brought  up  this  question  of  culture.  Never  was 
there  a  time  more  appropriate  than  the  pres- 
ent to  assess  once  for  all  its  value  and  to  as- 
certain what  service  it  is  rendering  in  the  high 
place  which  it  occupies. 

Few  things  that  have  come  down  to  us  out 
of  the  past  need  so  much  as  does  culture  to  be 
reexamined  in  the  light  of  our  new  democracy. 
For  ages  it  has  played  about  the  horizon  of 
humanity,  evoking  wonder  and  reverence,  at  in- 
tervals during  certain  golden  years  becoming 
an  almost  tangible  thing,  then  disappearing  to 
play  again  about  the  horizon.  And  always  that 
awe  which  it  has  inspired,  like  that  which  the 
pomp  of  the  popes  inspired  in  the  hearts  of  the 
early  Goths,  fresh  out  of  the  wilderness,  has  won 
for  those  who  professed  it  considerations  which 
the  mass  of  humanity  has  not  enjoyed.  The 
slave  who  could  recite  Euripides  was,  we  re- 
member, set  free,  while  his  companions,  in 
whose  minds  the  divine  fire  had  never  kindled, 
were  sent  to  the  quarries.  Other  institutions 
have  suffered  the  shocks  of  life,  have  even  gone 

254 


THE  CULTURAL  OBSESSION 

down  under  the  rising  flood  of  democracy,  but 
with  no  abatement  of  influence  the  aristocracy  of 
culture  has  persisted  through  the  ages.  In  re- 
spect of  reverence  which  they  have  commanded 
the  professors  of  culture  have  been  more  fortu- 
nate even  than  the  professors  of  religion.  In 
irreligious  ages  priests  have  been  persecuted 
like  ordinary  men,  whereas  in  dark  ages  the  man 
of  learning  has  retained  his  halo,  brighter  if 
anything  for  the  darkness  about  him.  And  with 
the  advancement  of  civilization  his  influence  has 
increased.  He  has  even  fallen  heir  to  preroga- 
tives formerly  exercised  exclusively  by  the  man 
of  God,  so  that  to-day  it  is  the  man  of  culture, 
not  as  yesterday  the  man  of  religion,  who  is 
summoned  by  governments  in  times  of  great 
crisis  to  make  plain  to  the  outraged  conscience 
of  humanity  those  other  considerations  which 
are  of  more  importance  than  human  life.  The 
scholar  has  become  the  father  confessor  of  the 
nations. 

In  the  long  ago  a  war  was  righteous  or  abhor- 
rent as  it  advanced  or  retarded  the  spread  of 
so-called  Christianity.  Then,  too,  there  were 
considerations  of  more  importance  than  human 
life.  Though  the  church,  as  I  tried  to  show 
in  a  previous  chapter,  from  her  very  establish- 

255 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

ment  upon  the  Tiber,  turned  her  face  toward 
conquest,  it  was  probably  from  Islam  that 
Christianity  received  its  ultimate  impulse  to 
take  up  the  sword  for  the  conversion  of  unbe- 
lievers; and  to  the  sword  the  builders  of  the 
church  soon  added  the  faggot.  Divergent  in 
many  points  of  faith  and  practice  as  these  two 
creeds  were,  the  Christian  came  finally  to  agree 
with  the  Mohammedan  in  this,  that  war  was  jus- 
tifiable, was  even  a  high  duty,  provided  its  pur- 
pose was  to  carry  to  the  benighted  the  saving 
grace  of  the  true  religion.  The  one  essential 
difference  between  them  was  that  there  was 
more  strife  to  protect  the  true  faith  from  the 
heresy  of  free  minds  within  Christendom  than 
there  was  in  the  Mohammedan  world. 

The  culturist  therefore  had  a  precedent  for 
adopting  the  professional  attitude  toward  war. 
Though  there  are  people  to-day  who  are  doubt- 
less irritated  by  his  aloofness  from  the  human 
cry  in  the  present  war,  in  this,  too,  we  must 
remember,  he  is  following  an  ancient  precedent. 
Culture  has  succeeded  religion,  but  professional- 
ism has  remained.  War  to-day  is  righteous  or 
abhorrent  as  it  seems  likely  to  advance  or  re- 
tard culture,  not  all  culture  but  the  true  cul- 
ture. Religionists  and  culturists,  so  wide  apart 

256 


THE  CULTURAL  OBSESSION 

in  many  things,  are  alike  in  this,  that  they  have 
both  suffered  from  the  fatal  tendency  to  exag- 
gerate the  importance  of  their  place  in  the 
economy  of  life.  Withdrawn  from  the  world  of 
active  affairs  into  a  world  of  contemplation, 
and  surrounded  with  the  ancient  illusion  that 
they  alone  live  in  imperishable  realities,  they 
have  induced  a  state  of  mind  that  sees  in  all 
the  other  manifestations  of  life  both  cosmic  and 
social,  roots  and  leaves  the  sole  purpose  of 
which  from  the  foundation  of  the  world  has 
been  to  gather  food  for  these  particular  blooms. 
And  tending  these  blooms,  they  have  uncon- 
sciously developed  that  professionalism  which 
imagines  that  humanity  was  made  for  these 
things  and  not  these  things  for  humanity. 

What  is  this  thing,  then,  to  consider  which  the 
neutral  nations  are  asked  to  take  their  eyes 
from  battle-fields  where  thousands  of  men  are 
dying?  Obviously  it  is  something  which  the 
mass  of  mankind  do  not  understand  and  of 
which  dictionaries  give  no  adequate  definition. 
We  are  asked  to  accept  it  on  faith.  We  are 
asked  to  quiet  our  compunctions  and  to  believe 
that  if  only  the  cause  of  true  culture  is  pro- 
moted, all  is  well.  And  if,  still  troubled,  we 
persist  in  our  determination  to  find  out  what 

257 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

this  thing  is,  and  search  the  records  of 
Greece  where  it  is  supposed  to  have  originated, 
still  we  are  disappointed.  The  past  throws 
no  light  upon  why  it  is  that  culture  has  a 
place  in  the  scales  against  human  suffering. 
We  are  even  more  confused,  less  able  to  under- 
stand it  than  before.  For  while  in  Greece,  too, 
culture  was  considered  a  thing  of  so  divine  a 
character  as  to  justify  the  enslavement  of  one 
part  of  the  population  by  the  other,  it  was  not 
until  the  leadership  of  Greece  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  semi-barbarian  Philip  that  designs  for 
world  conquest  became  rife.  Never  before  this 
did  it  occur  to  the  sane  Greek  to  take  up  the 
sword  in  order  to  bring  civilization  to  the 
barbarian.  The  Athenian  mind,  superior  as 
it  unquestionably  was  to  its  neighbors,  was 
never  soil  to  the  strange  idea  of  teaching  the 
world.  The  Greek  was  too  busy  teaching  him- 
self. And  always  in  Greece  when  the  need 
arose  the  guardians  of  culture  were  to  be  found 
in  the  ranks  of  the  armies.  At  Marathon,  we 
remember,  the  great  JEschylus  bared  his  im- 
mortal breast  to  the  Persian  spear.  And  Soc- 
rates fought  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  ordi- 
nary men  in  the  Macedonian  wars.  And 
Demosthenes,  that  terrible  foe  of  the  barbarian, 

258 


THE  CULTURAL  OBSESSION 

went  forth  against  this  barbarian,  sword  in 
hand.  Evidently  modern  culture  is  more 
precious  than  ancient  culture  or  more  likely  to 
perish  should  its  guardians  fall. 

We  are  asked  to  accept  it  on  faith.  We  are 
asked  to  believe  that  above  the  head  of  the 
average  man  there  is  something  for  which 
nevertheless  the  average  man  should  be  willing 
to  die.  Even  by  eminent  rationalists,  in  the 
grasp  of  whose  terrible  logic  the  pillars  of  the 
church  have  come  down  because  it  was  claimed 
they  supported  a  transcendental  kingdom,  we 
are  asked  in  our  investigations  into  the  respon- 
sibility for  the  present  war  to  throw  into  the 
scales  this  thing  which  very  clearly  belongs 
in  the  same  class  of  unseen  values.  That  I 
call  an  unseen  value  the  existence  of  which  a 
man  accepts  from  the  mouth  of  another  man 
without  knowing  in  his  own  soul  that  it  is  true. 
Upon  the  pillars  of  the  church  which  the  cul- 
turists  have  brought  down  they  have  erected 
another  kingdom  for  the  scattering  of  whose 
blessings  it  is  their  bounden  duty  as  in  the  days 
of  Islam  to  assault  with  fire  and  sword  and 
bring  into  subjection  peoples  into  whose  lives 
this  wonderful  light  has  never  come.  Culture 
is  the  new  religion  possessing  all  the  sanctions 

259 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

and  employing  for  its  spread  all  the  instru- 
ments employed  by  the  church  in  the  Dark 
Ages — even  to  the  crosses. 

Is  it  possible  that  Germany  does  not  see 
what  every  nation  can  easily  see  if  it  will  only 
take  the  trouble  to  look  into  its  own  depths, 
that  not  only  in  neighboring  nations  but  in  Ger- 
many also,  despite  her  leadership  in  education, 
there  are  vast  masses  of  people  to  whom  this 
thing  which  her  elite  call  culture  is  an  unseen, 
certainly  an  unshared  value?  For  no  one 
would  resent  more  quickly  or  with  more  fer- 
vor than  the  German  professor  the  idea  that 
culture  is  reading  and  writing  and  the  ability 
to  figure  wages. 

Is  the  average  German  soldier,  who  has 
grown  up  in  a  country  in  which  it  is  claimed  the 
new  culture  has  for  years  had  its  home,  so  dif- 
ferent from  the  soldiers  of  the  opposing  armies 
that  he  knows  what  is  meant  by  this  won- 
derful light  beyond  the  pale  of  which  men  are 
" barbarians"?  Do  these  men  whose  fore- 
fathers marched  forth  to  the  ends  of  the  earth 
and  fell  by  thousands  about  the  Holy  Sepulcher 
understand  what  for  it  is  they  have  gone  forth? 
Of  old,  as  we  see  it  now,  those  waves  after  long 
waves  that  rolled  toward  Asia  from  the  fields 

260 


THE  CULTURAL  OBSESSION 

and  towns  of  Europe  were  blown  by  the  winds 
of  fanaticism.  Of  the  peasants  and  artisans 
who  made  up  the  bulk  of  those  great  armies, 
though  inconspicuous  under  the  banners  of  the 
Godfreys  and  the  Barbarossas,  not  one  in  his 
normal  condition  could  have  given  any  reason 
for  his  ardor.  Even  churchmen  to-day  are 
ashamed  of  those  militant  outbursts  of  the  true 
faith  and  would  fain  erase  them  from  the  pages 
of  history. 

Since  the  last  crusader  returned  beaten  from 
Asia,  what  a  change  has  come  over  the  world ! 
Since  time  began  no  other  six  centuries  span  a 
gulf  so  immeasurable.  It  is  as  though,  with  all 
the  intervening  lands  dropped  out,  a  bridge 
should  have  grown  up  between  China  and  Ger- 
many. Despite  the  wars  and  the  clash  of  baron 
with  baron,  how  still  that  ancient  world,  how 
far  off  from  the  world  of  to-day  thundering  with 
engines  and  aflame  and  boiling  with  democracy. 
And  yet  when  we  consider  it  closely  the  trans- 
formation seems  to  be  chiefly  an  outer  one. 
Wide  as  the  chasm  is,  the  man  on  this  side  is 
not  so  very  different  from  the  man  on  the  other 
side.  For  while  it  is  true  that  the  farther  end 
of  the  bridge  is  engulfed  in  darkness,  in  the 
march  of  man  over  into  the  present  Age  of  En- 

261 


lightenment,  as  we  call  it,  the  great  forces  of  the 
Dark  Ages  have  not  fallen  behind.  Names 
have  changed,  possibly  motives  also,  but  that 
which  is  deeper  than  either  of  these,  the  ca- 
pacity of  man  for  illusions  and  his  readiness  to 
march  in  vast  masses  into  incalculable  suffering 
and  death  for  something  which  he  does  not  un- 
derstand— this  has  remained  the  same.  Fun- 
damentally therefore,  despite  the  marvelous  ex- 
pansion of  education,  we  are  evidently  still  in 
the  Dark  Ages.  For  what  is  the  Dark  Ages 
if  not  a  lack  of  understanding,  a  widespread 
darkness  instead  of  a  widespread  light? 

And  over  this  bridge  into  a  changed  but  not  a 
new  world  has  come  also  the  builder  of  illusions. 
Changed  as  the  times  are  changed,  but  with 
power  still  to  set  millions  in  motion  toward  the 
horizon  beyond  which  they  seem  to  think  some 
paradise  awaits  them,  the  user  of  magical 
words  is  still  among  us.  As  on  the  other  side 
of  the  bridge  humanity  was  told  and  unques- 
tioningly  believed  that  there  was  something 
which,  though  they  could  not  understand  it,  was 
vastly  more  important  than  work  or  rewards  of 
work,  for  which  it  was  their  duty,  their  glory 
to  give  up  all  they  were  attached  to,  even  their 
lives,  so  to-day.  Though  the  soldiers  of  the 

262 


THE  CULTURAL  OBSESSION 

true  culture  understand  as  little  of  what  is 
meant  by  this  phrase  as  the  soldiers  of  the  true 
faith  knew  what  was  meant  by  that  expression, 
it  is  under  the  same  enchantment  and  with  the 
same  shout  that  they  go  forth  to  die. 

As  out  of  the  Dark  Ages,  we  hear  of  the 
"duty  to  make  war,"  not  the  duty  to  defend 
oneself  but  the  duty  to  conquer  others.  And 
when  the  world  asks  why,  the  culturists  tell  us 
it  is  for  the  spread  of  the  true  culture. 

Christendom,  as  I  have  said,  probably 
learned  this  strange  gospel  from  the  wild  fol- 
lowers of  the  Prophet  who,  in  their  assault 
upon  Europe,  curving  up  now  in  the  West  and 
now  in  the  East  like  the  horns  of  the  crescent, 
sought  to  convert  with  the  sword  the  followers 
of  the  cross.  For  though  even  before  Islam 
the  Roman  legions  had  swept  Westward,  never 
from  Rome  this  mystical  justification  of  war. 
The  Romans  were  a  practical  people  whose  im- 
agination, though  it  might  play  with  the  ends  of 
the  earth,  was  never  kindled  into  the  white  heat 
of  frenzy.  Tyrants  often  were  the  Caesars,  but 
never  fanatics.  If  they  went  forth  sword  in 
hand,  it  was  with  something  in  the  other  hand 
which,  after  almost  two  thousand  years,  man- 
kind concedes  was  of  inestimable  value.  In  the 

263 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

wake  of  the  Roman  armies  followed  the  Roman 
peace,  in  those  days  of  fierce  tribal  warfare  a 
compensation  shared  alike  by  serf  and  noble, 
and  understandable  even  by  barbarians.  And 
therefore  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  why  the  con- 
quered peoples  of  the  north  soon  enlisted  in  the 
Roman  armies,  for  whether  in  Gaul  or  in  Brit- 
ain the  lowest  man,  challenged  to  explain  his 
strange  face-about  to  the  Caesars,  could  point 
to  order  where  disorder  had  reigned,  to  splen- 
did roads,  to  growing  trade,  to  a  tangible  bet- 
terment of  life  under  the  Roman  peace.  But 
behind  the  zealous  followers  of  the  Prophet 
what  sediment  remained?  Looking  out  over 
the  vast  lands  which  they  conquered,  we  see 
far  less  substantial  contributions  to  the  com- 
mon good  than  those  which  the  practical  Rom- 
ans invariably  left  in  subjugated  lands.  Even 
more  true  is  this  of  the  followers  of  the  cross 
who  in  turn  carried  the  tide  of  conquest  over 
Asia.  The  Christians  were  in  no  sense  the 
vanguards  of  a  higher  order  of  life.  Indeed, 
of  neither  the  Mohammedan  nor  the  Christian 
was  it  the  purpose  or  the  hope  to  bring  such 
benefits  to  conquered  lands.  Theirs  was  the 
mission  to  offer  in  return  for  indescribable  suf- 
fering in  this  life  an  indefinable  paradise  in  the 

264 


THE  CULTURAL  OBSESSION 

next.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  the 
Eoman  as  ever  afflicted  with  any  such  obsession, 
for  the  Roman,  even  the  man  in  the  ranks,  al- 
ways somehow  knew  what  he  was  about,  and 
there  was  no  intelligence  however  low  to  which 
he  could  not  have  explained  himself.  But  of 
the  other  two,  those  militant  faiths  with  their 
imagined  superiority  and  their  duty  to  teach 
the  world,  what  other  word  so  well  expresses 
as  the  word  obsession  that  utter  loss  of  reason, 
that  wild  egomania,  that  passion  to  die  if  only 
the  true  faith  might  live,  which  drenched  first 
Europe  and  then  Asia  with  blood? 

When  we  contemplate  Europe  to-day,  we  do 
not  see  that  wide  difference  between  Germany 
and  her  neighbors  which  distinguished  Rome 
from  Gaul  and  early  Britain.  In  the  case  of 
Rome,  acquainted  as  she  was  with  cities,  with 
commerce,  and  with  the  arts,  one  could  easily 
have  foreseen  that  vast  benefits  would  flow  to 
the  conquered  northern  peoples  who  knew  noth- 
ing of  these  things.  But  in  the  case  of  Ger- 
many, it  is  not  clear  why  the  other  civilizations 
of  Europe  should  be  obliged  to  take  character 
after  hers.  Nothing  is  so  alluring  about 
Europe  as  its  diversity  of  races  working  out 
their  diversity  of  ideals.  At  the  price  of  this, 

265 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

which  we  find  in  no  other  continent,  even  Ger- 
man culture,  though  it  were  all  the  Germans 
themselves  claim  for  it,  would  come  high.  Yet 
there  are  those  who  would  see  in  the  dissemina- 
tion of  this  culture  over  the  whole  continent  an 
ample  return  even  for  the  ruin  of  the  present 
war.  Just  so  the  followers  of  Gebel  al  Tarik 
and  later  the  followers  of  the  Lion  Heart. 

It  is  incomprehensible  that  culture  should 
ever  have  gone  to  religion  for  its  sanctions. 
For  culture,  especially  German  culture,  has 
never  in  other  respects  shown  a  disposition  to 
follow  the  lead  of  Christianity  either  medieval 
or  ancient.  Indeed,  in  nothing  has  the  aggres- 
sive Teutonic  spirit  shown  itself  more  clearly  or 
more  admirably  a  pioneer  in  those  things  which 
concern  the  freedom  of  the  human  mind  than  in 
the  bold  way  in  which  it  has  dissected  this 
ancient  faith  and  divested  it  of  its  superstitions. 
Nowhere,  as  I  have  said,  have  imaginary  values 
come  down  with  such  a  noise  as  they  have  in 
Germany.  For  German  culturists  to  have 
adopted  the  thesis  of  Islam  and  of  medieval 
Christianity  that  war  is  justifiable  provided  its 
purpose  be  to  introduce  among  the  peoples 
whom  it  has  outraged  a  vision  of  some  far  up- 
lands of  the  spirit  that  have  been  revealed  to 

266 


THE  CULTURAL  OBSESSION 

them  alone,  seems  to  those  who  have  fed  upon 
the  world-thoughts  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  to  be 
a  blighting  of  the  fine  flower  of  the  German 
mind  and  strangely  out  of  keeping  with  that 
character  which  should  rule  the  world.  If  the 
world  is  to  be  ruled  by  one  race  it  should  be  by 
that  race  which  is  the  most  capable  of  appreci- 
ating what  the  other  races  have  accomplished. 
Life  should  move  toward  the  broader,  not  the 
narrower ;  toward  the  cosmopolitan,  not  the  pro- 
vincial. 

It  is  surprising  that  the  keen  German  psy- 
chologist who,  it  has  always  been  supposed, 
understands  better  than  his  confreres  of  other 
countries  the  workings  of  the  human  mind,  has 
not  perceived  the  incongruity  of  a  cultural  cru- 
sade in  an  age  of  democracy.  Here  is  a  failure 
more  astonishing  even  than  the  failure  of  Ger- 
man diplomacy.  For  any  one  with  the  slightest 
knowledge  of  human  nature  and  with  only  a 
newspaper  acquaintance  with  modern  Germany 
could  have  picked  out  for  the  leaders  of  the  Ger- 
man Foreign  Campaign  Committee  a  dozen 
claims  far  more  likely  to  win  the  world's  sym- 
pathy than  this  claim  of  cultural  superiority. 
Instinctively  he  would  have  said:  "Here  is 
your  need  of  land  for  your  growing  population, 

267 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

and  the  care  yon  take,  more  than  any  other  na- 
tion in  Europe,  of  your  people.  These  will  ap- 
peal to  humanity  everywhere,  especially  in 
America."  For  unfortunately  we  are  so  made 
that  our  hearts  go  out  to  human  need  and  human 
attention  but  shut  themselves  up  at  the  least  sign 
of  domineering.  It  is  exceedingly  strange  that 
a  truth,  obvious  to  the  man  in  the  street,  should 
have  escaped  the  German  professor — even  be- 
fore the  present  war.  And  now,  after  months 
of  opportunity  to  observe  effects  in  neutral 
lands,  it  is  incomprehensible  that  it  is  still  not 
seen.  In  the  experimental  sciences  particularly 
Germany  has  won  fame.  In  her  laboratories 
theories  have  met  facts  and  have  been  subjected 
to  the  test  of  facts.  And  yet  after  this  long  pro- 
tracted discussion  and  appeal  to  the  neutral  na- 
tions one  has  but  to  turn  any  day  to  the  corre- 
spondence columns  of  the  newspapers  to  dis- 
cover under  German  names  boldly  put  down 
such  expressions  as  would  have  gratified 
beyond  words  the  heart  of  Treitschke,  who 
quotes  so  approvingly: 

"Some  day  through  the  German  nation, 
All  the  world  will  find  salvation. ' ' 

Signed  letters  more  amazing  to  the  common 

268 


THE  CULTURAL  OBSESSION 

man  and  of  more  interest  to  the  student  of  hu- 
man nature  have  never  appeared  in  print. 
Evidently  it  is  still  not  apparent  to  the  Ger- 
man people  that  egomania  is  not  only  out  of 
date,  but  what  is  more  to  the  point  in  their  cam- 
paign for  the  world's  good  opinion,  that  it  has 
failed  utterly  to  produce  results.  If  instead  of 
being  a  human  problem,  a  matter  upon  which 
may  hang  consequences  of  the  most  vital  charac- 
ter, it  had  been  a  problem  in  chemistry  having 
seriously  to  do  with  the  perfecting  of  a  dye  or  a 
drug,  it  is  inconceivable  that  the  German  mind 
would  not  long  ago  have  perceived  what  was  the 
matter. 

If  Germany  has  failed  both  in  her  diplomacy 
and  in  her  more  general  understanding  of  hu- 
man nature  it  is  solely  for  the  reason  that, 
despite  her  marvelous  progress  along  other 
lines,  she  has  still  not  emancipated  herself  from 
the  medievalism  of  her  universities  in  which,  as 
always,  human  values  are  of  secondary  impor- 
tance and  in  which  the  idea  seems  still  to  persist 
that  humanity  is  interested  not  in  freedom  but 
in  culture. 


269 


THE  MORAL  FAILURE  OP 
"  EFFICIENCY" 


XI 

THE   MORAL   FAILURE   OF   "  EFFICIENCY " 

IF  the  present  war  is  making  some  men  brutal, 
it  is  also  making  most  men  humble.  We  had 
become  sure  of  ourselves — sure  that  at  least  our 
foundation  was  sound.  We  had  only  to  en- 
large our  rooms  and  here  and  there  to  alter 
their  arrangement  for  the  growing  needs  of  our 
spreading  democracy  to  make  of  the  world  the 
comfortable  place  our  hearts  had  desired.  And 
therefore,  while  we  were  willing  to  change  our 
institutions,  we  saw  no  need  to  change  ourselves. 
Now,  as  though  something  had  been  thrust  right 
up  against  our  faces,  we  see  that  it  is  not  so 
much  a  new  government  or  a  new  church  or 
a  new  industrial  system  that  is  needed,  as  a  new 
and  fervent  idealism  that  will  warm  and  shine 
through  all  these.  Given  new  builders,  and 
whatever  changes  are  needed  in  our  institutions 
will  take  care  of  themselves ;  but  new  builders  we 
must  have.  And  more  light,  vastly  more  light ! 
Never  was  the  spiritual  sun  so  far  off,  never 

273 


THE  WORLD  STOEM  AND  BEYOND 

were  we  so  lost  to  the  meaning  of  life.  For  in 
as  many  months,  as  many  centuries  have  fallen 
out.  Yesterday  between  ourselves  and  the 
Dark  Ages  lay  the  bright  fields  of  the  Renais- 
sance; to-day  we  shake  hands  with  Peter  the 
Hermit  and  Walter  the  Penniless.  Incalculable 
as  has  been  our  loss  of  property  and  business, 
this  cuts  nothing  like  so  deeply  as  our  loss  of 
pride.  With  what  terrible  mockery  it  comes 
back  upon  us  now  that  only  yesterday  we  were 
sending  missionaries  to  the  heathen.  If  we 
could  only  forget  that!  If  only  we  could  shut 
from  our  minds  the  memory  of  the  complacency 
with  which  we  surveyed  history  and  laid  out  age 
on  age  the  march  of  man.  From  the  fifth  to  the 
eleventh  century  A.  D.  was  the  Dark  Ages ;  from 
the  eleventh  to  the  sixteenth  was  the  Renais- 
sance; the  present  was  the  Age  of  Enlighten- 
ment. Ah,  the  bitterness  of  it  all ! 

This  is  the  right  spirit  in  which  to  face  the 
future,  the  only  spirit  that  can  justify  a  hope  of 
something  better.  No  one  is  so  difficult  to  teach 
as  the  teacher  no  one  so  hard  to  draw  onward  as 
the  one  who  thinks  he  is  there.  If  the  present 
war  has  seemed  to  set  us  back,  it  is  chiefly  be- 
cause of  the  immense  vistas  it  has  opened  up. 
It  is  as  though  all  our  lives  we  had  had  our  eyes 

274 


MORAL  FAILURE  OF  "EFFICIENCY" 

upon  the  earth,  and  had  suddenly  looked  up  at 
the  stars.  For  centuries  we  had  compared  our- 
selves with  our  fathers,  to  our  vast  advantage. 
Then  there  was  a  shock,  and  we  found  ourselves 
facing  the  future.  What  we  had  done  was  sud- 
denly thrown  up  against  not  what  our  fathers 
had  done,  but  what  we  had  not  done,  and  we 
were  overwhelmed.  We  are  small,  we  are  igno- 
rant, we  are  barbarous.  We  were  exalted,  and 
we  are  cast  down.  "  Except  ye  ...  become  as 
little  children,  ye  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven."  War  has  made  us  chil- 
dren. Now  we  are  ready  to  go  forward.  Or 
at  least  we  are  ready  to  look  around  us  in 
humility  and  with  open  minds.  And  looking 
about  us,  we  see,  amid  the  utter  wreck  of  all  that 
we  have  and  are,  that  our  sole  hope  lies  in  the 
fuller  unfoldment  of  humanity — unfoldment, 
education.  For  how  without  this  shall  we  find 
our  way  out  of  the  morass  into  which  we  have 
wandered? 

What  is  the  supreme  failure  which  we  have 
made  in  this  thing  to  which,  nevertheless,  we 
still  look  for  the  solution  of  the  mighty  problems 
that  confront  us?  Undoubtedly  this,  that  we 
have  mistaken  literacy  for  education.  We  have 
been  satisfied  if  the  people — I  mean  the  great 

275 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

mass  of  people — have  learned  to  read  and  write. 
We  have  led  them  through  the  alphabet,  then 
to  make  room  for  those  crowding  behind,  we 
have  shunted  them  out  into  trades  and  occupa- 
tions. And  we  have  deceived  ourselves  into  be- 
lieving that  we  were  educating  the  people.  If 
any  one  doubts  that  the  least  possible  education 
consistent  with  national  vanity  has  been  the  so- 
cial goal  toward  which,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, we  have  been  drifting,  let  him  stop 
and  recall  how  much  he  has  read  in  public  prints 
and  how  much  he  has  heard  from  public 
speakers  of  the  reduction  of  illiteracy,  and  with 
what  pride  statistics  have  been  quoted  showing 
this  happy  "spread  of  intelligence*'  among  the 
people.  And  the  naivete  with  which  we  accepted 
this  as  proof  of  the  enlightenment  of  our  age, 
and  the  reliance  which  we  placed  upon  it  not 
only  to  advance  society,  but  to  preserve  peace — 
only  within  the  past  few  months  have  we  come 
to  realize  what  children  we  were.  State  has 
vied  with  state  and  nation  with  nation  for  a  high 
place  upon  this  honor-roll.  In  their  eagerness 
to  get  their  populations  out  of  ignorance  they 
have  resembled  shepherds  who  have  only  to  get 
their  flocks  into  the  fold  to  go  home  and  sleep 
securely  for  the  night.  Once  they  have  brought 

276 


MORAL  FAILURE  OF  "EFFICIENCY" 

their  peoples  safely  into  the  corral  of  literacy, 
they  have  felt  free  to  turn  their  attention  else- 
where. The  completion  of  the  education  of  a 
state  or  a  nation  is  its  graduation  from  igno- 
rance to  literacy. 

When  society  has  conducted  a  man  across  this 
line  we  are  confident  that  thereafter  he  can  find 
his  way  alone.  For  he  is  now  mature,  a  shaper 
of  opinions,  a  free  and  sovereign  part  of  the  so- 
cial intelligence.  Thereafter,  if  he  is  oppressed 
industrially,  if  he  is  misled  by  his  rulers  into 
imagining  that  it  is  to  his  interest  to  lay  down 
his  tools  and  take  up  the  sword,  he  has  only  him- 
self to  blame  for  it.  It  would  be  an  unheard-of 
extravagance  to  pay  further  attention  to  a  man 
who  can  read  and  write  and  do  problems  in 
arithmetic.  We  have  discharged  our  high  re- 
sponsibility when  we  have  connected  him  with 
the  newspapers.  Ignorant,  he  was  a  menace  to 
society;  but  educated  to  read  the  newspapers, 
he  is  a  safe  and  dependable  citizen,  or,  what  is 
more  to  the  point,  an  equipped  and  dependable 
workman.  Literacy  is  the  sop  which  our  com- 
fortable society  throws  to  democracy.  And 
with  this  supplied,  generously  as  the  modern 
world  has  supplied  it,  we  were  safe  from  a  re- 
crudescence of  barbarism. 

277 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

Nothing  in  the  record  of  modern  times  will  so 
excite  the  smile  among  peoples  of  centuries  to 
come  as  the  serious  attention  which  we  have 
paid  to  this  rudiment  of  education  and  the  little 
after-concern  we  have  shown  for  anything  be- 
yond it.  They  will  be  filled  with  wonder  that 
this  age,  the  most  marvelous  in  many  ways  that 
has  ever  passed  over  the  planet,  among  the  first 
if  not  the  very  first  in  the  richness  of  objective 
life,  should  ever  have  confounded  with  educa- 
tion, which  means  unfoldment,  a  makeshift, 
hurry- them- through  process  that  contributes  to 
nothing  of  the  sort,  and  is  indeed  the  very  oppo- 
site of  unfoldment.  The  astonishment  which 
they  will  feel  that  minds  capable  of  producing 
such  masterpieces  of  science  and  mechanics  as 
our  age  has  produced  could  be  capable  of  such 
blindness  as  we  have  shown  in  education  will  be 
similar  to  that  which  we  now  feel  when  we  recall 
amid  what  sort  of  crude,  religious  concepts  the 
old  masters  flourished.  Despite  the  fact  that 
the  age  in  which  they  lived  was  honeycombed 
with  churches,  not  to  that  age,  we  now  see,  was 
it  given  to  look  behind  the  trinkets  of  ritual. 
Similarly,  despite  our  multiplicity  of  schools, 
turn  where  we  will,  there  are  evidences  that 
we  are  mistaking  the  outer  for  the  inner, 

278 


MORAL  FAILURE  OF  "EFFICIENCY" 

the  facts  for  the  living  forces  of  life.  Reading 
and  writing,  a  little  mathematics,  a  little  history, 
a  little  literature,  ability  to  trace  a  few  rivers 
and  locate  a  few  capitals,  to  distinguish  between 
the  veto  and  the  pocket* veto,  to  know  a  robin 
from  a  bluebird — we  do  not  seem  to  be  aware 
that  this  is  the  outer  shell  of  education  as  ritual 
is  the  outer  shell  of  religion. 

Within  a  few  years,  if  our  present  zeal  and 
the  outpouring  of  public  and  private  wealth  con- 
tinue, the  last  illiterate  will  have  crossed  the 
line  into  safety.  Will  our  work  then  be  simply 
to  see  that  there  is  no  relapse?  Will  we  then 
have  accomplished  our  task? 

As  we  draw  near  this  goal,  there  are  signs 
that,  with  ignorance  abolished,  with  the  mental 
man  put  in  order,  we  shall  be  at  a  loss  to  know 
what  to  do.  Already  we  are  growing  restless 
lest  with  these  educational  necessities  provided, 
the  raison  d'etre  of  our  school  system  will  have 
vanished.  And  we  are  turning  hither  and 
thither  in  exceeding  perplexity  to  discover  to 
what  other  uses  this  expensive  system  may  be 
put.  And  while  discussion  goes  on  as  to  the  ad- 
visability of  adopting  this  or  that  innovation, 
there  is  one  which  we  have  already  adopted :  we 
have  resolved  to  educate  the  hand. 

279 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

There  are  evidences,  I  say,  that  out  of  a  sheer 
we  don't  know  what  else  to  do  with  them,  our 
schools  are  to  be  turned  into  workshops.    Either 
because  we  do  not  see  or  because  we  are  inca- 
pable of  entering  the  mighty  field  of  the  moral- 
ities, where  the  finer  urgings  and  the  powerful 
restraints  of  life  are  bred,  from  one  end  of  the 
world  to  the  other  we  are  shepherding  the  rising 
generation    toward    tools.    And,    as    always, 
weighty  reasons  are  at  hand.    Why  should  we 
teach  our  young  solely  to  read  and  write,  and 
neglect  the  mighty  matter  of  work?    Work,  not 
reading  and  writing,  is  the  normal  function  of 
the  human  being.    All  else  is  abnormal.    Work 
is  the  language  of  humanity.    Why  not  teach 
the  child  to  speak  that  ?    It  is  by  work  that  they 
will  have  to  live.    Why  not  prepare  them  to 
live?    Therefore,  sewing  and  cooking;  there- 
fore, the  making  of  boxes  and  the  molding  of 
bricks.    We  have  lighted  the  candle  of  literacy ; 
now  we  are  going  to  set  it  upon  the  bench  in 
order  that  the  workman  may  be  an  intelligent 
workman.    At  last  our  educators  have  found 
not,  as  in  literacy  a  means  to  an  end,  but  the  end 
itself. 

It  needs  no  seer  to  perceive  that  the  goal  to- 
ward which  we  are  aiming  is  the  goal  of  the 

280 


MORAL  FAILURE  OF  "  EFFICIENCY " 

modern  world,  efficiency.  To  be  capable  of  co- 
ordinating brain  and  hand  in  the  production  of 
a  piece  of  work,  that  and  that  alone  is  to  be  the 
new  education.  Literacy,  despite  our  strenu- 
ous efforts  to  keep  it  alive,  would  seem  to  be  the 
dying  out  of  an  ancient  ideal  for  an  intellectual 
humanity,  the  diffusion  of  a  light,  once  concen- 
trated in  a  few  suns  and  stars,  over  the  be- 
nighted masses  of  men.  Whether  we  may  not 
eventually  dispense  with  it  altogether  as  a  lux- 
ury remains  to  be  seen.  For  work  has  come 
— work,  the  herald  of  a  new  age.  And  educa- 
tion, the  purpose  of  which  among  the  ancients 
was  to  connect  man  with  the  cosmos,  to  give  him 
an  understanding  of  the  laws  and  purposes  of 
life,  is  becoming  ancillary  to  this  physical  giant 
that  has  come  among  us.  More  and  more  the 
value  of  the  training  which  is  offered  in  our 
schools  is  being  estimated  by  how  much  it  con- 
tributes to  the  new  practical  science  of  making 
good,  of  meeting  one's  fellow-man  or  fellow- 
woman  in  the  factory  and  proving  the  better, 
whether  at  the  bench  or  in  the  office.  And  this 
is  accepted  as  quite  the  proper  thing  except  by 
those  who  are  still  not  convinced  that  the  world 
is  a  factory  or  man  solely  a  workman. 
What  is  the  larger  meaning  of  the  new  age 
281 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

that  for  years  has  been  dawning,  and  into  what 
sort  of  world,  if  we  submit  ourselves  placidly  to 
its  guidance,  will  it  at  last  usher  us  ? 

Undoubtedly  it  is  a  revolt  against  the  past, 
the  sacrifice  of  everything  to  the  present.  This 
is  the  key-note  of  the  new  age ;  that,  regardless 
of  to-morrow,  the  day  that  is  passing  must  be 
freighted  to  its  full  capacity.  Therefore  the 
newspaper,  the  voice  of  the  present,  has  suc- 
ceeded the  book;  therefore  the  job  has  crowded 
out  the  integrities  of  life.  No  single  idea — or 
shall  we  say  unconscious  conviction? — has  be- 
come so  conspicuously  the  fetish  of  the  modern 
man  as  the  idea  that  the  present  is  to  be  seized 
at  all  costs.  The  relations  of  things  and  of 
people,  of  the  man  himself  to  the  past  and  to  the 
future,  all  these  are  of  less  concern  than  the 
particular  thing  upon  which  the  eye  is  fixed. 
That  he  is  completing  something  or,  rather, 
adding  to  something  upon  which  humanity  has 
been  working  since  the  very  appearance  of 
humanity  upon  the  planet  has  either  become  a 
myth  or,  despite  his  education,  has  never  so 
much  as  entered  his  mind.  Such  a  conception 
is  not  involved  in  the  meaning  of  literacy, 
is  not  necessary  to  manual  efficiency.  To  be 
literate,  one  need  not  see  his  place  upon  the 

282 


MORAL  FAILURE  OF  "EFFICIENCY" 

great  reef  of  being,  but  only  his  relation  to 
the  passing  moment.  As  for  the  future,  what 
is  the  future  f  We  neither  know  nor  care.  The 
consumption  of  children  in  our  industries  is  the 
index  of  the  age.  If  only  we  can  keep  up  steam, 
— whither  we  are  plunging  we  do  not  care, — it 
matters  nothing  if  we  burn  masts  and  cabins. 
The  past  and  the  future  are  follies  that  the 
modern  man  has  outgrown. 

It  is  high  time  we  were  considering  what  is 
meant  by  efficiency,  and  just  what  the  pursuit  of 
it  involves.  It  is  only  within  recent  years  that 
the  word  has  become  the  common  possession  of 
men ;  but  this  very  fact  that  it  has  thus  suddenly 
leaped  into  wide  currency  is  itself  proof  that 
even  before  its  coming  we  were  already  in  full 
motion  toward  that  which  it  signifies.  Indeed, 
few  words  fit  so  intimately  into  our  every-day 
life  or  express  so  precisely  the  spirit  of  the  pres- 
ent age.  To  be  efficient  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  word  is  used  to-day  requires  the  concentra- 
tion upon  some  particular  thing  or  task  in  life 
until  one's  mastery  of  it  is  supreme.  Is  effi- 
ciency education  ?  It  all  depends  upon  what  we 
mean  by  education.  If  education  is  unf  oldment, 
then  efficiency  is  not  education.  Education  is 
inclusive,  whereas  efficiency  is  exclusive.  Effi- 

283 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

ciency  has  to  do  with  a  part  of  the  universe; 
education  with  the  whole.  Efficiency  produces 
a  workman ;  education,  a  human  being.  Educa- 
tion is  illuminating;  efficiency  is  the  darkening 
of  the  chamber  of  life  in  order  to  develop  a 
film. 

Does  it  make  any  difference,  so  far  as  its  effect 
upon  the  person  in  the  dark  room  is  concerned, 
whether  the  picture  to  be  developed  is  the  pic- 
ture of  a  perfect  mason  able  to  lay  a  score  more 
bricks  than  his  fellows  or  a  scholar  who  through 
years  of  application  has  added  Assyrian  to  his 
list?  Is  not  the  whole  question  of  the  value  of 
such  efficiency  both  to  the  individual  and  to  so- 
ciety the  question  how  much  of  what  lies  outside 
the  dark  room  has  been  forgotten  by  the  person 
at  work  on  the  inside?  Or  is  it  of  no  conse- 
quence that  stars  are  forgotten,  that  the  open 
fields  disappear,  that  parenthood  becomes  a 
name?  Is  an  increase  in  such  skill  or  such 
knowledge  of  such  importance  that  we  may 
safely  purchase  it  at  the  price  of  the  eternal 
verities  ?  That  is  a  question  which  our  leaders 
of  education  would  do  well  to  take  with  them 
into  their  studies.  For  to-morrow,  as  never  be- 
fore, the  world  is  going  to  put  the  question.  As 
never  before  we  are  going  to  set  ourselves  to 

284 


MORAL  FAILURE  OF  "EFFICIENCY" 

finding  out  why  it  is  that  in  an  age  of  general 
education  human  life  has  no  meaning. 

We  are  fortunate  in  having  a  single  nation  to 
which  we  may  turn  and  find  an  example  of  what 
modern  education,  when  carried  to  its  logical 
conclusion,  will  accomplish.  Germany  alone 
has  had  the  courage  to  build  its  last  story,  to  be 
loyal  to  it  unto  death.  To  be  supremely  effi- 
cient both  as  an  individual  and  as  a  nation,  if 
there  is  one  idea  which  more  than  any  other  de- 
serves the  label  "Made  in  Germany,"  it  is  this. 
No  other  nation  has  ever  rallied  with  such  fervor 
about  a  word  as  Germany  has  rallied  to  the  word 
Kultur,  efficiency.  Other  faiths  and  philoso- 
phies have  been  thrust  aside  to  make  room  for 
this.  Kultur  is  the  spiritual  kaiser  of  the  Ger- 
man nation. 

The  world  is  under  obligations  to  Germany 
for  this  energizing  idea,  which,  in  its  place  as 
the  servant  of  life,  has  undoubtedly  been  fruit- 
ful of  vast  good.  But  as  the  goal  of  effort,  as 
the  master  of  life,  into  what  moral  confusion, 
into  what  unspeakable  crime,  has  it  not  led  us ! 
For  centuries  mankind  will  be  clothed  with 
shame,  and  the  European,  whether  in  the 
councils  of  state  or  traveling  among  the  nations, 
will  grow  red  and  stammer  his  apologies.  And 

285 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

the  German  people,  led  on  through  the  years  to 
this  terrible  chasm,  when  at  last  they  have  awak- 
ened, with  what  hearts  will  they  face  their  mas- 
ters of  education?  How,  hereafter,  will  they 
read  over  the  amazing  creed  which  to-day  they 
so  fervently  approve  and  which  through  years 
has  been  wrought  out  of  the  basest  utterances 
of  their  nobler  men  and  the  least  noble  utter- 
ances of  their  basest.  "War  is  a  business,  di- 
vine in  itself,  and  as  needful  and  necessary  to 
the  world  as  eating  and  drinking, ' '  said  Luther. 
"Let  your  labor  be  fighting.  .  .  .  The  weak  and 
the  blotched  must  perish  from  the  earth,"  de- 
clared Nietzsche.  "War  is  elevating.  .  .  . 
What  a  perversion  of  morality  to  wish  to  abolish 
heroism  among  men!"  said  Treitschke.  "The 
inevitableness,  the  idealism,  and  the  blessing  of 
war,  as  an  indispensable  and  stimulating  law  of 
development,  must  be  repeatedly  emphasized," 
said  Bernhardi.  Here,  certainly,  is  the  dark 
room.  We  hear  of  the  failure  of  the  German 
this  and  of  the  German  that,  but  it  is  becoming 
clearer  every  day  that  it  is  the  German  mind 
that  has  failed.  That  is  the  supreme,  the  sad- 
dest tragedy  of  the  present  war.  "We  wanted 
it,"  says  the  great  Berlin  editor,  Maximilian 
Harden.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  is  right. 

286 


MOEAL  FAILUEE  OF  " EFFICIENCY'1 

And  only  yesterday  we  were  all  at  school  to 
Germany.  Our  leaders  of  industry,  our  educa- 
tors, even  our  doctors  of  divinity,  were  going 
abroad  to  get  the  German  point  of  view.  Ger- 
many was  the  modern  world;  Berlin,  the  gate 
to  the  future.  To  be  unacquainted  with  German 
thought  was  almost  to  be  medieval.  We  did  not 
question  the  relation  between  mind  and  morals. 
If  the  one  had  advanced,  how  could  the  other 
have  lagged  behind?  How  could  a  people  so  far 
ahead  in  theory  be  behind  in  practice  ?  We  were 
ready  to  look  askance  at  the  kaiser ;  but  the  Ger- 
man people — their  sociability  was  one  of  the  at- 
tractions of  Europe.  Their  love  of  children  had 
gone  throughout  the  world  with  their  toys.  We 
were  not  aware  that  this  sociability  was  subtly 
being  fed  to  conquest,  that  these  toy-makers 
were  being  converted  into  gun-makers.  We  did 
not  realize  the  power  of  education  utterly  to 
transform  a  people. 

It  needs  no  Treitschke  now  to  tell  us  that  "the 
German  army  constitutes  a  peculiar  and  neces- 
sary continuation  of  the  scholastic  system." 
Assuredly  it  is.  What  the  mind  conceives  the 
hand  will  execute.  Given  the  German  training, 
the  present  war  was  as  inevitable  as  that  a  stone 
which  had  dropped  four  feet  will  drop  the  fifth, 

287 


if  there  be  a  fifth.  It  was  just  as  certain  as 
that  the  stars  swing  round  that  sooner  or  later 
Germany  would  seek  to  complete  her  natural 
orbit.  Whether  Germany  counseled  the  Aus- 
trian stroke  that  was  the  technical  cause  of  the 
present  war  is  beside  the  point.  The  great  fact 
which  sooner  or  later  will  emerge  from  the  pres- 
ent confusion,  which  indeed  has  already 
emerged,  is  that  what  is  happening  in  Europe 
to-day  is  the  logical  outcome  of  a  partial,  and 
therefore  false,  view  of  life,  the  inevitable  con- 
sequence of  the  worship  of  efficiency.  With 
the  finest  educational  system  of  its  kind  in  the 
world,  with  a  system  that  in  its  way  has  made 
good  as  no  other  system  has  made  good,  Ger- 
many is  less  able  to  get  along  with  her  neighbors 
than  any  other  nation  in  the  world. 

Turn  now  from  German  militarism,  the  final 
step  in  German  education,  to  industrialism  in 
almost  any  of  the  leading  nations. 

I  have  said  that  the  world  has  become  a  fac- 
tory. Consider  life  in  any  quarter  of  the  globe, 
and  mark  in  what  direction  it  is  moving.  For 
the  vast  web  of  injustice  and  poverty  that  we 
are  weaving,  our  mighty  energies  are  flowing 
into  the  factory  as  to  an  ultimate  heart.  And 
this  heart  is  the  active  center  of  the  modern 

288 


MOEAL  FAILURE  OF  " EFFICIENCY" 

world,  as  the  school,  in  the  higher  meaning  of 
that  term,  was  the  center  of  the  Hellenic  world, 
as  the  church  was  the  center  of  the  medieval 
world.  And  just  as  these  former  ages  took 
color  and  character  from  their  central  institu- 
tions, so  the  present  age  takes  color  and  char- 
acter from  the  factory.  The  statesman  is  the 
voice  of  the  factory  in  government.  The  edu- 
cator never  forgets  for  what  it  is  his  work  is 
a  preparation,  that  the  final  examinations  are 
held  in  the  factory.  Even  religion  makes  terms 
with  the  factory,  softens  its  admonitions  to  the 
powerful  presence  in  the  pews.  As  the  Greek 
was  kindled  with  culture  and  the  Christian  with 
faith,  so  to  much  the  same  fervor  the  present 
age  is  bitten  with  the  passion  for  making  things. 
We  consume  ourselves  in  order  to  produce 
something.  We  cannot  ripen,  because  it  is  a 
waste  of  time  hanging  upon  the  bough. 

The  consequences  are  inevitable.  The  mo- 
ment a  man  becomes  merely  a  workman,  whether 
a  miner  or  an  engineer,  a  teacher  or  a  lawyer, 
that  moment  he  becomes  less  than  a  human  be- 
ing. For  no  man  can  give  himself  mind  and 
soul  to  a  part  without  sooner  or  later  becoming 
a  part.  He  will  fail  to  realize  the  difference  be- 
tween a  whole  made  up  of  wholes  like  society,  in 

289 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

which  it  is  necessary  for  the  individual  to  realize 
what  he  is,  and  a  whole  made  up  of  parts  like  a 
piece  of  mechanism.  In  this  respect  the  work- 
man and  the  soldier  are  alike.  Each  is  a  unit  of 
labor,  and  it  needs  no  transformation  of  mind  to 
convert  the  one  into  the  other.  That  is  why  it 
is  so  easy  to  fill  armies  with  workmen.  Both 
have  forgotten  or,  though  they  may  have  gone 
through  our  schools,  have  never  yet  learned  that 
they  are  human  beings.  Unless  a  mighty  cor- 
rective is  applied,  a  corrective  which  has  not 
yet  appeared  in  the  modern  world,  the  three 
hundred  men  who  combine  their  labor  and  in- 
telligence to  the  making  of  a  watch  will  forget 
that  they  themselves  are  not  parts  of  a  larger 
watch  to  be  wound  up  by  some  outside  hand  and 
to  be  carried  in  the  pocket  of  some  kaiser.  And 
once  this  oblivion  has  come  over  them,  there  is 
no  limit  to  their  loyalty,  no  sacrifice  that  they 
will  not  make  to  remain  parts. 

To  such  a  degree  has  this  system,  which  we 
may  fairly  call  the  German  system,  become  the 
European  system  and  the  American  system,  and 
is  threatening  to  become  the  Turkish  system  and 
the  Chinese  system,  that  the  integrities  of  life 
are  on  the  point  of  disappearing.  That  free- 
dom of  life,  that  space  in  which  to  wander,  to 

290 


MORAL  FAILURE  OF  ''EFFICIENCY" 

run,  if  one  so  desires  or  to  lie  down,  that  leisure 
to  absorb  the  meaning  of  the  whole,  which  is  the 
divine  heritage  and  joy  of  a  cosmic  being,  is  tot- 
tering under  the  transformation  of  the  human 
being  himself.  The  richness  of  color  and  of 
mood  which  we  think  of  as  the  glory  of  the  an- 
cient world  is  fading  into  the  drab  of  efficiency. 
Gradually  we  are  becoming  units  of  labor. 

This,  then,  is  the  debris  of  an  educational  sys- 
tem that  has  utterly  failed — failed  to  give  sanity 
to  life,  failed  even  to  protect  life.  For  already 
it  has  become  evident  that  if  our  superstructure 
has  collapsed,  the  ultimate  cause  lies  down  here 
in  the  foundation  which,  more  from  a  hope  of 
what  it  shall  be,  we  call  education.  The  tower- 
ing structure  which  we  reared,  and  which  has 
now  toppled  over,  was  both  in  height  and 
weight  wholly  out  of  proportion  to  the  labor  ex- 
pended underneath  it.  That,  we  may  safely 
say,  will  be  the  judgment  of  posterity  upon  the 
present  age ;  that  it  had  height  without  depth,  a 
marvelous  mounting  of  the  visible  without  the 
granite  of  the  invisible  to  sustain  it.  Indeed, 
that  is  already  our  own  judgment. 

Right  here,  if  we  only  knew  it,  is  the  crossing 
of  the  two  roads,  from  a  far  journey  along  one 
of  which  we  now  reel  back  stricken,  bereft,  horri- 

291 


fied.  Where  have  we  been?  Into  what  night- 
mare have  we  wandered?  It  is  almost  as 
though  the  body  of  humanity  lay  torn  and  bleed- 
ing at  our  feet,  crying  out  in  agony  at  the  blood 
upon  our  hands.  I  have  tried  elsewhere  to 
show  that  we  have  not  leaped  a  sudden-yawning 
chasm  into  the  present  war,  but  that  it  was  the 
natural  development  of  our  present  system  of 
life  as  truly  as  a  fruit  is  the  natural  develop- 
ment of  a  blossom.  Militarism  is  the  militant 
factory.  The  factory — by  factory  I  mean  of 
course  our  whole  industrial  system — is  our  edu- 
cational system  at  work.  These  are  the  three 
cars  in  the  train  of  the  modern  world.  All  are 
coupled  together,  rushing  on  together  at  the 
same  speed,  with  militarism  in  front,  the  factory 
in  the  middle,  and  our  educational  system  as  the 
engine  pushing  them  on  from  behind.  Is  there 
one  intelligent  person  who  does  not  see  that  the 
present  catastrophe  is  the  wreck  not  of  the  first 
car  only,  but  of  the  whole  train?  To-day  we 
sicken  at  the  trenches  and  would  fain  forget  the 
work  of  our  hands.  To-morrow  we  will  dis- 
cover the  second  wreck,  and  the  next  day  the 
third.  Then  possibly,  in  the  light  of  this  tre- 
mendous syllogism  which  spells  out  the  utter 
failure  of  our  civilization,  we  shall  come  upon 

292 


MORAL  FAILURE  OF  "EFFICIENCY" 

the  cause  of  it  all,  that  for  the  sake  of  speed  and 
more  speed  and  still  more  speed  we  have  thrown 
into  the  furnace  not  only  the  coal  of  life,  but  the 
landscape,  even  the  engineer.  For  that  is  pre- 
cisely what  we  have  done,  and  the  present  war 
is  only  the  horrible  message  spelled  out  in 
blood:  for  efficiency  we  have  neglected  charac- 
ter, for  the  almighty  dollar  we  are  destroying 
man. 

What,  then,  is  oar  duty  in  the  light  of  these 
facts?  First,  to  quash  the  indictment  against 
the  kaiser  and  against  Germany  (and,  if  our 
German  brothers  say  so,  against  England  and 
Eussia)  and  against  militarism  and  against  our 
" barbarous  industrial  system,"  and  accept 
service  on  ourselves  as  the  builders  of  an  educa- 
tional system  that  is  a  splendid  success  if  the 
world  is  a  factory,  but  a  monstrous  failure  if  it 
should  happen  to  be  more  than  that.  Then,  hav- 
ing taken  this  step,  without  which  no  progress  is 
possible,  we  are  back  at  the  cross-roads  whence 
the  second  path  leads  up  over  the  mountains. 
We  are  facing  away  from  industry  toward  life, 
and  are  ready  to  march  on  from  literacy  to  edu- 
cation, from  information  to  unfoldment.  Our 
eyes  are  open  to  the  place  of  work  and  to  the 
place  of  the  moralities.  We  are  ready  to  ad- 

293 


THE  WORLD  STORM  AND  BEYOND 

mit  that  to  get  along  with  people  is  an  essential 
part  of  education,  that  to  know  what  is  right  is 
quite  as  important  as  to  know  what  is  true.  We 
are  ready  to  supplement  manual  training  with 
man  training,  willing  to  add  to  efficiency  of  pro- 
duction efficiency  of  understanding.  When  we 
have  found  us  teachers  capable  of  making  these 
things  clear,  we  shall  have  gone  far  toward  mak- 
ing war  impossible  and  peace  worth  while. 


294 


